43rd Bolder Boulder participation back above 40,000
Early Monday morning, more than an hour before tens of thousands hit the streets of Boulder for the 43rd Bolder Boulder, race director Cliff Bosley was busy at the north end of Folsom Field unloading folding tables from a golf cart.
About 26 hours after the race ended, Bosley was in the streets himself on Tuesday afternoon, helping the Bolder Boulder team collect no parking signs from along the route.
That sequence once again illustrates that while the city moves on after the Memorial Day festival, the work is never truly done for race organizers. That remains true as the event continues to slowly regain the traction it owned before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the race’s cancellation in 2020 and 2021.
While an official entry total has not quite been finalized, on Monday Bosley told the Daily Camera the final total topped the 40,000 mark. Although that remains short of the final entry numbers prior to the pandemic — the Bolder Boulder featured 47,250 entrants in 2019 and reached 50,000 in 10 of the 12 races between 2007 and 2018 — it remains an improvement of about 18% over the 33,991 entries in 2022 following the two-year hiatus.
“It shut down abruptly, and I think with the recovery it’s coming back deliberately,” Bosley said. “It’s coming back. With COVID, everybody has their own comfort with it, and that’s a function of time. This year was way better than last year, and I suspect next year we should see some more of that deliberate growth.”
Bosley said his team planned to hold its first meeting looking ahead to 2024 on Tuesday afternoon. One item surely on the agenda in the coming months will be how to get the pro field in the International Team Challenge back to the pre-pandemic level of competitiveness.
Monday’s pro race featured just 11 teams, six in the men’s field and five in the women’s field. That actually was a slight step backward compared to the race’s return in 2022, when there were seven teams in each field. The International Team Challenge featured 10 teams in each field in 2019 and 2018, including 11 in the men’s field in 2018.
“As a matter of practice, we’ll recap and assess everything,” Bosley said. “So not only will we look at the mechanics of staging the operation, but the professional race as well. The pandemic I think brought with it some challenges with countries having trouble getting visas for travel. All parts of the sport are coming back at their own pace.
“We’ll ask the pro athletes and coaches in the sport to help answer this, but international athletes have been a part of the Bolder Boulder for a long time, but we have to ask what’s the best way to keep doing that. The good news is it was more than it was last year, and my suspicion is it will be more next year than it was this year. And that also includes interest in the pro race.”
Medical update
Bosley said 45 participants were given aid at the Bolder Boulder’s medical tent, with the bulk of them consisting of dehydration and heat-related issues. Only one of those 45 people was transported to the hospital, but none of the problems were considered serious.
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