With the brand new yr, a slew of recent and revised UCI guidelines go into impact for 2025, together with the addition of an under-23 class for ladies on the world championships, the official roll-out of the ‘yellow-card’ system for security violations and extra particular guidelines surrounding dash finishes.
One of probably the most important adjustments pertains to under-23 males who will be unable to compete within the class on the UCI Road World Championships if they’re registered with a WorldTour or ProTeam, with an exception for trainees.
The victory of Movistar’s Iván Romero within the under-23 time trial in Zurich was the fourth title in a row gained by a WorldTour rider after Lorenzo Milesi, Søren Wærenskjold and Johan-Price Pejtersen.
In the UCI Road World Championships, the under-23 girls will lastly have their very own race quite than being mixed with the elite girls as has been the case since 2022. However, the under-23 girls and under-23 males will not be allowed to compete within the class if they’ve raced as elites in a earlier World Championships.
What this implies for the primary yr of the ladies’s under-23 class stays to be seen as many on this class competed within the mixed race in Zurich final yr.
The under-23 girls don’t have an analogous restriction on their crew registration, and WorldTour riders can compete within the class.
Yellow playing cards
A significant speaking level for the 2025 season would be the implementation of the yellow-card system that may result in suspensions for repeat offenders of security guidelines equivalent to sticky-bottles, drafting off the crew automobile and getting mechanical assist from a shifting automobile, amongst others.
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The system was examined in the course of the 2024 season in WorldTour races however will broaden to the ProSeries, Continental and World Championships, and Olympic Games going ahead.
If a rider will get two yellow playing cards throughout the identical occasion, they are often disqualified and suspended for seven days. Three playing cards in 30 days earn a rider or director a 14-day suspension. Six playing cards over a 52-week rolling interval can lead to a 30-day suspension. If the suspension falls in the course of the low season, will probably be served in the course of the subsequent season.
The UCI closed a loophole within the earlier guidelines that eradicated yellow playing cards as punishment for a rider who couldn’t be correctly recognized by officers. The guidelines now drive Sport Directors to determine the rider or face a CHF 2,000 high-quality.
Race distances
Women may also get to compete over longer distances because the UCI raised the utmost distance for Worlds and Olympics to 180km, up from 160km. The UCI lowered the utmost distance vary for under-23 males to 150km to 180km.
Both under-23 girls and junior males races at Worlds might be from 110 to 140km lengthy whereas junior girls gained 20km with the change to a variety of 70 to 100km, up from the earlier 60-80km.
Time trial distances for elite girls shifted, too. The most distance vary is now 30-40km time trials for the Worlds and Olympics. Under-23 girls can compete over 20-30km.
The UCI has additionally launched equal distances for ladies in all monitor biking occasions below 2025 guidelines. The change eliminates the ladies’s 500 metre time trial in favour of the identical 1,000 metres (‘kilo’) the lads have raced and raises the ladies’s particular person pursuit to 4km to match the lads’s distance.
Men and ladies may also race 10km Scratch Races in each the stand-alone occasion and the Omnium and 10km Tempo races. Previously males raced 15km and ladies 10km within the Scratch Race and 10km and seven.5km within the Tempo Race. Junior women and men will now each compete over 7.5km.
Other notable adjustments embody language relating to groups feeding riders exterior of designated feed zones has been struck by means of and races are actually required to have feed zones each 30-40km.
Sprint zone
The UCI added language permitting for the 3km rule on dash levels to be expanded to 5km and issued a extra thorough “Sprint Zone protocol”. The guidelines had been examined from June 12, 2024. The protocol must be requested by race organisers for a sure stage or race prematurely of the beginning.
The UCI was cautious to state that, “the dash should even be revered and preserved with out being perceived as an exhibition with none sporting penalties”.
Under the dash zone protocol, riders who end inside three seconds, quite than the usual one-second hole, might be given the identical time because the winner. The time is measured from the again wheel of 1 rider and the entrance wheel of the next rider. If the hole is three seconds or extra, the second rider could be given a brand new time hole.
However, if a breakaway rider wins the stage, the hole calculation could be the usual one-second rule for the breakaway however three seconds for the chasing peloton.