COME TOGETHER

A combined multi-sport cycling World Championship in Scotland is one of the UCI’s better ideas, writes John Whitney

Since his election to the UCI presidency in 2017, David Lappartient has been largely defined by his very public desire to curb Team Sky’s dominance, floating ideas as various as salary caps, team size reduction, and the banning of power meters and race radios, not to mention the unsavoury tit-for-tat with Dave Brailsford conducted through the media. Of course, since the team’s sponsor signalled its intention to pull out of the sport at the end of the current season, Lappartient has been able to focus on matters more befitting a leader of a global sports governing body.

So it was a good surprise when, in February, the announcement was made that Scotland would host the inaugural combined cycling world championships, bringing together the sports of road, track, mountain biking and BMX into a single event for a couple of weeks in August 2023.

Like governments, governing bodies get a bad press, often deservedly so. After his death last year, cycling’s own Hein Verbruggen, UCI president from 1991-2005, received something of a reassessment of his tenure, with credit given for modernising the sport, yet there’s no glossing over the fact he presided over a scandalous chapter in the sport’s history. It’s easy to bash the UCI and its leaders – I’ve been doing it for the past half page! – but it should also be recognised when they bring about good change, which Scotland 2023 most certainly is. We thought we’d have to wait another generation for the Road Worlds to come back to the UK after this autumn’s visit to Yorkshire, so for it to be just five years is a welcome surprise.

This first joint Worlds, which Lappartient says is a fulfilment of one of his campaign commitments, is in the diary for the year before the 2024 Olympics. That’s how it’s set to continue in the future, on a four-year cycle. Glasgow, with the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome and BMX venue, will be the central host with those respective events, but the road and mountain biking locations are still up in the air. Fort William, longtime host of a round of the MTB World Cup, must be a favourite for the off-road events. The annual UCI gran fondo final, which Cycling Plus rode in Perth, Australia in 2016, will be held at the same time.

How will it fit into the broader calendar? August means it’ll be sandwiched between the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, and perhaps dilute its significance for roadies compared to its usual season-ending slot. For the track, will this mark the final Worlds before the Olympics, or will there be another in its traditional February slot of 2023?

All questions for another day. Cycle sport is disparate and uniting each discipline in a jamboree of all things pedal-powered is a great move. It will hopefully attract audiences to individual sports where ordinarily it would have passed them by.

Uniting disciplines in a jamboree of all things pedal-powered is to be welcomed