El Tour de Tucson has a new sponsor: Special Olympics.
The bicycle race announced its new deal during a press conference this afternoon at Casino del Sol Resort. Special Olympics will serve as El Tour's title sponsor for the next three years.
Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
The new sponsor replaces University of Arizona Medical Center, which held naming rights from 2007 to 2012. City and county officials helped defray the cost for last year's event, which lacked a title sponsor.
The event will be known as Special Olympics El Tour de Tucson.
"We are thrilled to add Special Olympics to the Perimeter Bicycling family," Richard DeBernardis, El Tour's founder and president, said. "It has a reputation in 170 countries for helping 4.2 million individuals with intellectual disabilities realize bright futures; at the local level, the state program, Special Olympics Arizona, is a vibrant one. We applaud Special Olympics' mission and vision, and are honored to be part of it. The widespread and deep passion that people have for Special Olympics' work should foster increased participation and charitable donations."
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El Tour is Southern Arizona's largest participatory sporting event. More than 8,400 riders took part in last year's event, which was held in the driving rain and cold.
Today’s announcement provided a happy ending to a confusing month. Officials scrapped an April 30 press conference, in part — they said — because the new sponsor wanted to make a national announcement. That never happened, and a new announcement was scheduled for today.
The sponsor remained a secret until this afternoon: Officials offered few hints, except to say it was a international organization with the ability to bring many new riders to Tucson.
Read more in Friday's Arizona Daily Star.
