The 2017 Mark Gunter Photographer of the Year Awards closed last week, and over its duration, we received hundreds of incredible submissions from around the world – truly some of the best cycling photography of the year. In addition to being a great showcase for the talented entrants, the Awards also had an important purpose – raising a significant amount of money for cancer research through Australian Cancer Research Foundation, Tour de Cure and for Young Cyclist Development.
Now that entries are closed, it’s over to our panel of judges – Graham Watson, Marcus Enno (aka Beardy McBeard) and Jim Fryer & Iri Greco of BrakeThrough Media – to decide who’s going to take home the spoils.
Each of the judges has gone through the difficult task of shortlisting their top 10 favourite photos from each of the three categories. From these shortlists, the judges will deliberate on the top three winners of each category in the coming days – with final winners to be announced on January 12, 2018.
Iri Greco and Jim Fryer are the founders of US-based BrakeThrough Media. They work across a broad spectrum of editorial and commercial photography, capturing the full spectrum of beauty and suffering in the pro peloton, their editorial work and commercial photography for clients including Specialized Bicycle Components and SRAM.
Here’s their shortlist from the 2017 Mark Gunter Photographer of the Year Awards.
Professional category
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- Nils Laengner – While the cobble stones of the “Hell of the North” are legendary in European cycling, those of the “Wall of Kigali” are on their way to achieving similar status in Africa. This year, they spiced up the queen stage of the ninth edition of the Tour du Rwanda. After six stages and 698 kilometres, a road with an ascent at twelve percent becomes a wall. But pushing the bike is not an option… at least not a serious one.
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- Brian Hodes – Lines
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- Tim Bardsley-Smith – On hearing about the mission for #RoadtrippingMountEverest the idea behind this image was the single first thing that came to my mind. It would instantly tell the epicness of the tale. I knew I could not leave Tibet without it.
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- Tim Bardsley-Smith – Jaw, meet Floor… it was hard not to get blown away every single day in Tibet.
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- Eloise Mavian – Laurens De Plus climbing the Muro di Sormano in first position during Il Lombardia. He was in the breakaway of the day but minutest after this beautiful moment he crashed badly on the descent. Luckily he is recovering well.
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- Daniel Ziegert – Competitive cycling has always been about the big rivalries. And this one is as good as it gets: Holland vs. Belgium, Wout vs. Mathieu – Two athletes defining a league of their own having fans worldwide on the edge of their seats in astonishment.
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- Alex Broadway – 12:11:17 – Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup – Manchester – Great Britain compete in the Women’s Team Pursuit Final. Pic by Alex Broadway:SWpix.com
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- Wouter Roosenboom – Worldchampion Time Trial 2016 Tony Martin exhausted after his time trial in Marseille. Stage 20 in the Tour de France 2017
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- Vincent Riemersma – Tom Dumoulin on the rollers during a bikefitting in preparation for the new cycling season for team Sunweb.
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- Brazo de Hierro – Among those great giants of the wind
Enthusiast category
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- Carl Hattingh – The Hunt1000 yard stare (by Ant Duff & myself)
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- Wouter Hoogenboom – Catch me if you can! Floyd Bennet Field, Brooklyn, New York City.
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- Jenna – The season has come to ride purely for fun. To ride all day long and never check to see how far you’ve gone, to spend more time laughing than trying to catch your breath, to get covered in mud, to take that trail even though you’re not sure where it leads, and to pack your jersey with a can of beer and some jelly beans for the train ride home. A day of fun with Bikes on Wheels Women on the Hamilton-Brantford rail trail, Ontario.
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- Emanuele Barbaro – The first man on the moon! (with bicycle). Francesco Dolfo in action at the 2017 Cyclocross Singlespeed World Championship in Verona.
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- Lian van Leeuwen : Saltlake_Lian – First shower in days. Cool down and clean up at the swimming pool shower after finishing 4000 kilometers of riding – Transcontinental race 2017
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- Dean Harris – Action under lights at Tempe Velodrome for Day 2 of the Sydney Xmas track carnival.
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- Angelica Dixon – Riders in the dust cloud
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- Stuart Baker – Sydney club racing, Danny Roberts-Clarke.
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- Galen Stilgebauer – The day before the Giro raced over the Stelvio, I got a chance to ride it for the first time. I was so taken with it, I wanted to got back up and watch the sunset. A single rider descended the narrow road through massive fields of snow. It was sublime.
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- Stephen Fitzgerald – I remember riding along this stretch of the Colorado River near Dotsero and talking to Remi about how the contrast of the place was overwhelming. To the left was a river that quenched the thirst of almost the entire American West, and to the right, mere feet away, it was total desert.
Smartphone and action cam category
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- Andy Rogers – Dusty Summer nights.
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- Verita Stewart – A picturesque place for your first mountain bike ride, Moke Lake in NZ. Views like these make it hard to keep the eyes on the trail.
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- AJ Moran – The newly sealed Elsmore road in the Southern Highlands gave us a new ride and a new climb. Approaching the climb early one Autumn morning we all noticed the approaching vista, simply stunning and too good an opportunity not to stop and shoot this amazing sunrise as the valley was shrouded in mist. Early morning rides have a knack of producing the most breathtaking scenery and one never regrets making the effort once you experience a scene like this.
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- Seetoh Lang – Riding solo is riding with and against one’s self. It allows your subconscious mind to unknot, accompanied by the steady sounds of the whir of your drivetrain and the beating of your own heart. Whether fast or slow, no matter the weather, I enjoy these times so much. There is no better feeling than watching the ground and your worries disappear underneath you as you race against nothing but your own thoughts.
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- Eric Newberg – Climbing the extremely steep backside of Col du Galibier with Bikes to watch TDF after Road was closed by Police.
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- Kasper Voogt – I call this … chainstay extension perspective. Staged and shot on Mount Norikura in Japan.
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- Alex Henderson – The White roads of Tuscany (June 7). It would be fair to say that I enjoyed riding the gravel more than my travel companions! (taken with an iPhone6S)
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- Michael Wichuk – Flandrien litter. Tour of Flanders 2017
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- Darin Lien – The solitude and hard scrabble of Jack Rabbit Trail in Southern California.
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- Jon Turner – A beautiful day on the Col du L’Iseran in the French Alps. Officially closed but we managed to ride to 2400 m in perfect conditions and beautiful light with the mountain completely to ourselves. Descending in summer kit in May – a truly magical day. Possibly a once in a lifetime.
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