Cycling’s principal shareholders compromise in Barcelona

In a two-day meeting in Barcelona between the UCI, cycling’s governing body, representatives of the race organizations and the WorldTour teams found common ground on the issue of three year race and WorldTour-level licenses in UCI’s sweeping reforms scheduled for 2017.

The UCI, the International Association of Cycling Race Organizers (AIOCC) and representatives of the 18 WorldTour teams hammered out an agreement to have races apply for a three-year inclusion in the WorldTour, for WorldTour squads to be given three-year licenses and for there to be a UCI-run Professional Calendar Working Group with input from teams, the AIOCC, and the riders.

Initially there was resistance to the UCI’s reforms–meant to streamline the calendar–from the AIOCC, which voted 77-6 against them as recently as November 20 at its annual meeting in Hamburg. Christian Prudhomme, head of both the AIOCC and the ASO which is the organizer of, among other races, the Tour de France, didn’t like the potential for clashes in the calendar. This summer the ASO threatened to withdraw its races from the WorldTour.

In a press release regarding the two-day meeting in Spain, the UCI said, “Races wishing to join the UCI WorldTour will be assessed based on a range of criteria to ensure the technical quality of those races as well as their role in the strategic development and promotion of the UCI WorldTour and the stories of the cycling season.”

There are still other issues to be agreed upon. The AIOCC wants there to be a reduction in riders in races–eight instead of nine in Grand Tours and seven in other races, something the organization believes would reduce crashes and make for less-controlled racing.