UCI urged to give clarity on Tokyo
BRITISH CYCLING performance director Stephen Park believes it is “mission critical” that the UCI provides clarity in the next few weeks on how the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics will affect planned reforms to the track cycling calendar.
The decision to move the Games back by 12 months because of the coronavirus came at a particularly awkward time for the world governing body as it looked to finalise a major overhaul of track cycling which shifts much of the competition to the summer.
The winter World Cup season is due to become the Nations Cup, staged between March and September from next year, and a new Track League was due to follow beginning in the winter of 2021-22.
But the Nations Cup will now clash with the Olympics, while the loss of the World Cup this coming winter means that for Great Britain the only major track competition on the agenda for the next 12 months is the UEC European Track Championships, scheduled for mid October.
“The UCI made it clear this week it is a looking at it and that a revised calendar is the utmost priority,” Park told the PA news agency.
“We have liased with the UCI to offer support and to consult on that. There is the challenge of how the Nations Cup is going to roll into an Olympic Games in 2021 and how the Track League comes out of that, and the fact there aren’t any races between now and then.
“It’s mission critical and I can only imagine the UCI is working flat out to get some clarity, but we need to give them some time because we don’t need the answers today. It would be better to get the answer in a month if it is the right answer.”