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Cyclocross racing could also be within the low season, however a sequence of adjustments for the 2024-2025 season have already stirred up some mud. On March 1, the UCI plans to implement “protected occasion” standing for a choose group of World Cup cyclocross occasions and appears to tighten “obligations” for highly-ranked riders to take part.
Athlete participation, or lack thereof, from final season, was a driving pressure for the rule adjustments, which had been reviewed throughout a UCI Administration Committee assembly on February 2-4 through the Cyclocross World Championships in Prague.
The UCI stated the evaluate of athlete participation at World Cup races started final November, “with the purpose of making certain balanced athlete participation within the completely different classes of cyclo-cross occasions”.
For ‘balanced participation”, a brand new rule states that riders within the high 20 of the lads’s and girls’s elite rankings will now “not be capable to participate in nationwide occasions”, in keeping with the UCI announcement.
With a purpose to attraction to these riders, the UCI said that every one World Cup occasions should reserve the primary two rows in elite races for the top-ranked athletes within the sequence.
For groups, a brand new rule stipulated that the 2 courses of cyclocross registered groups had been obligated to ship a sure variety of riders to World Cup occasions, with UCI Skilled Cyclocross groups required to ship not less than three riders throughout the lads’s and girls’s elite classes in all rounds of the World Cup.
For the smaller designation of squads – UCI Cyclocross groups – they’re obliged to ship not less than one rider in both class to a minimal of 5 rounds of the sequence.
Present Cyclocross Professional Groups embrace the Baloise Trek Lions, Deschacht-Hens-Maes and Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal. The penalty for not assembly the requirement for riders would be the forfeiture of their top-level licence.
A swirl of controversy started final season when Thibau Nys (Baloise Trek Lions), positioned third within the World Cup standings on the time, opted to compete within the Superprestige race in Niel, Belgium on a Saturday fairly than the World Cup spherical in Dendermonde, Netherlands on Sunday.
UCI Chairman David Lappartient harshly criticised the younger rider’s choice to concentrate on his personal programme, saying riders ought to “play the sport”.
Lappartient additionally lashed out that if a national-level race was a choice over a World Cup for riders, then these people is probably not allowed to start out different World Cup races “and due to this fact received’t journey the World Championships”.
Other riders and team leaders chimed in about the hectic cyclocross calendar, with 14 or 15 World Cup occasions throughout Europe and North America prior to now three seasons, fairly than eight or 9 occasions from the pre-COVID years.
Different races on the calendar are a part of the Superprestige, X2O Trofee and Actual Cross sequence. Riders now look to restrict intensive journey and add relaxation durations within the build-up to the World Championships.
“Up to now, everybody might take part in each race. However now the calendar is so full that you simply all the time must disappoint some organizations. This time that is a Superprestige, however within the coming weeks, the riders will probably skip one other World Cup,” stated Baloise Trek Lions workforce supervisor Sven Nys to In de Leiderstrui.
On the organisers’ aspect for 2024-2025, the UCI will introduce “protected occasion” standing for as much as half of the races. This was to eradicate scheduling conflicts for riders, harkening again to the Nys scenario the place an athlete stayed nearer to dwelling and elected to not journey for a World Cup contest.
“This standing can be granted to a most of fifty% of UCI World Cup occasions and solely when the occasion is of specific significance for the worldwide improvement of cyclo-cross,” learn the assertion from the governing physique.
“The granting of this standing will allow the UCI to refuse registration on the UCI Worldwide Calendar of a race that needs to happen the day earlier than or on the day of a ‘protected occasion’.
“The introduction of this particular standing is meant to advertise the internationalisation of cyclo-cross and to defend the prevalence of sporting curiosity relating to participation in cyclo-cross occasions. It additionally helps the solidarity mechanisms developed due to the UCI World Cup, the purpose of which is to extend the variety of nations collaborating in cyclo-cross occasions.”
A calendar for the 2024 UCI Cyclocross World Cup competitors is but to be introduced.
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