The UCI introduced the Cyclocross World Cup calendar for 2024-2025 with sweeping modifications together with a a lot later begin with the primary spherical on November twenty fourth, and a scarcity of any rounds within the United States, which had been a fixture of the early season since 2015 with the primary World Cup in Las Vegas.
The 2024-2025 calendar will embrace occasions in Dublin, Besançon and Benidorm and a brand new spherical in Oristano, Sardinia taking the place of the snowy occasion in Val di Sole. All 4 of those occasions have been given ‘protected standing’, which means the UCI can refuse registration of any race going down on the day of or the day earlier than the protected World Cup spherical.
The UCI launched the brand new guidelines in February to make sure the highest riders would deal with World Cups over the opposite profitable collection such because the Superprestige, X2O Trophy, Exact Cross and Hexia Cross in Belgium, Coupe de France and USPCX.
Riders had resisted competing within the full World Cup collection for the reason that UCI expanded the calendar from 9 rounds to as much as 15 in 2021-2022.
Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and Eli Iserbyt gained the 2023-2024 UCI Cyclocross World Cup total regardless of profitable simply three and two of the rounds. Alvarado competed in 12 of the 14 rounds with Iserbyt the one rider to compete in each occasion.
At the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in 2022, Lars van der Haar was one of many first to brazenly criticize the expanded calendar, telling Cyclingnews that 14 is “nonetheless means too many World Cups. Ten is greater than sufficient. I believe that will make the World Cup much more engaging as nicely. I believe subsequent yr there are 14. I believe some riders and in addition I’ll skip a few of these races.”
Riders did go on to skip rounds, particularly these exterior Belgium that required intensive journey. The challenge got here to a head final November when UCI President David Lappartient reacted to Thibau Nys’ resolution to skip the Dendermonde spherical however opting to race the Superprestige spherical the following day.
“If a rider prefers to experience a nationwide occasion throughout World Cup rounds, you will not experience the next World Cup rounds and subsequently you will not experience the World Championships,” Lappartient threatened.
“The World Cup shouldn’t be a contest in which you’ll decide and select as you please. Every rider has to play the sport.”
The UCI didn’t comply with by means of on the risk to exclude riders from the World Championships however as an alternative required that UCI-registered groups compete in every World Cup with at the very least one rider within the elite classes in 5 rounds of the World Cup, with UCI Professional Cyclocross groups being required to ship three riders to all the World Cup rounds.
Instituting a ‘protected standing’ for the December 1 spherical in Dublin, the December 8 race in Sardinia, December and the January 19 occasion in Benidorm could not have a huge effect on the nationwide collection occasions however the protected Besançon spherical on December 29 comes amid the favored ‘kerstperiode’ of racing in Belgium.
The longstanding Superprestige Diegem and Azencross in Loenhout sometimes are held across the identical date and might be refused registration by the UCI.
The lack of World Cup rounds in North America would additionally drastically handicap riders from the USA and Canada who relied on the races to achieve UCI factors towards grid positions for the collection and World Championships.
