UCI’S new Track Champions League set to feature 72 riders
The UCI'S new Track Champions League will include 72 riders and offer equal prize money to men and women, the world governing body has announced.
The new competition, designed in collaboration with broadcaster Eurosport and intended to win over new audiences with a televisionfriendly format, is due to be launched in November this year.
At each round, sprinters will contest the individual sprint and the keirin, while endurance riders will take part in an elimination race and a scratch race.
The league format will see four champions - men's and women's sprinters and endurance riders - crowned at the end of the competition.
UCI sports director Peter Van den Abeele said: "After unveiling the name and visual identity of the series last November, as well as the period during which it will take place, this is another step closer to the first edition of the competition, which will start next November.
"A dynamic race format, a qualification system to select the best athletes, an attractive points system and equal prize money for men and women, in line with the UCI'S policy across all its events...the new series has all the ingredients to reinforce a solid and appealing UCI Track International Calendar alongside the discipline's UCI World Championships and UCI Nations Cup."
Theneweventispartofawider restructuring of the track calendar, first announced by the UCI 13 months ago at last year's World Championships in Berlin.