2016 season to see a new world-class women’s cycling series, the UCI Women’s World Tour: UCI officials

Starting next season, there will be a new standard-bearing UCI women’s tour hitting the annual cycling circuit. As the global cycling body recently announced, the UCI has launched the Women’s World Tour, a major leap forward for women’s cycling.

The event replaces the UCI Women Road World Cup, which ended in 2015 after a seventeen-year run starting in 1998.

The competition will take place over the course of 17 races — 13 single-day events and four stage races — taking place over 35 days in nine different countries, including China and the United States. Its first event rolls out on March 5, 2016, at Italy Strade Bianche, and ends on September 11 with the Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta. In all, the number of competition days on the Women’s World Tour calendar tops the World Cup by over 60 percent.

The first of the 2016 Women’s Tour’s stage races, reports say, happens from May 6 through 8 in China, when the Tour of Chongming Island kicks off. Just under two weeks later, it’s followed up by the U.S. Tour of California, May 19-22, and the Philadelphia Classic on June 5. Two women’s multi-day competitions come next on the shores of Europe, with the Women’s Tour of Britain happening from June 15 to 19 and the Women’s Giro d’Italia, between July 1 and 10.

Boosting the profile of women’s competition in cycling was a major part of UCI president Brian Cookson’s platform, back when he first ran for the top job in the sport.

“The launch of the UCI Women’s World Tour,” Cookson told reporters, “is a major step forward for women’s cycling and reflects detailed and very constructive discussions we have had with all our key stakeholders for more than a year. I’m delighted we’ve been able to reach agreement.” To UCI women’s commission chair Tracey Gaudry, the event’s promise is a progressive one, setting a precedent that will, she hopes, invide more female riders to saddle up.

“The tour will present a season-long calendar of events that will help build a strong narrative around our sport,” she said. “With riders battling for honours in one-day classics and stage races as well as for overall rankings, I’m convinced we now have a premier product that will bring a whole new set of fans to women’s cycling.”

News of the world-class series for women comes on the heels of some big names in the sport — Victoria Pendleton, in particular — sounding their advocacy for a women’s competition on the scale of the Tour de France, for example. In addition to the prominent Olympian, some big businesses connected with cycling, like UK-based retailer Halfords, have thrown their support behind broad strokes of the idea, too. The hope — one reflected by statements like Gaudry’s, predicting the benefit of a Women’s World Tour in terms of getting more women competing — has been that such an event would prompt an uptick in female competitors.