Earlier this summer, I mentioned that the Downtown Criteriums normally held in June that have been so popular in recent years had disappeared from the TXBRA calendar only to reappear scheduled for the Labor Day weekend. At the time, the reschedule was explained as a scheduling conflict with the City of Austin and other events.

Well, turns out they really are off for 2009 according to their website:

The Austin promoters have decided to postpone the race until 2010 due to the scarcity of sponsorships.  Please feel free to contact Ashley@gobike1.com with any questions.

Bummer. It was part of the USA Crits series calendar and a a chance to see some national pros in our midst. Plus racing downtown was really cool. This is a trend I’ve been seeing lately on the triathlon cuircit as several of my favorite summer races that were previously on the calendar are now gone. Chalk it up as another victim of the economic downturn. Let’s just hope this is a temporary postponement as we’ve seen races like the Tour of Georgia get “postponed” only never to come back.

The good news is that as of last week, the Tour of Austin is still on that same weekend produced by Driveway series organizer Andrew Willis and his crew at Holland Racing. Andrew will be getting more details soon on the race.