Ohio State president helps Pelotonia 2021 get rolling

Ohio State University President Kristina M. Johnson celebrated the return of an in-person Pelotonia at the official opening ceremony Friday night at the new Columbus Crew stadium, Lower.com Field.

It’s Johnson’s first ride with the event and she will serve as the honorary captain of Team Buckeye. The university’s superpeloton includes Ohio State students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as their family and friends.

The fight to cure cancer is personal for Johnson, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was a senior in college planning for graduate school.

“What it taught me is that at great universities like The Ohio State University, you have teams of cross-disciplinary researchers. You have physicians who talk to engineers and physicists and biologists and social scientists and artists, and they figure out ways to put together solutions to some of the world’s greatest problems, like curing cancer” she said.

Since its founding, Pelotonia has raised over $217 million for cancer research for the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, including The Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology. 

Pelotonia 2021 will include both in-person ride experiences and self-guided participation options. As in previous years, 100% of every dollar raised by participants goes to Ohio State’s cancer-fighting treatments and research.