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G7 economic summit forces cancellation of 2018 Grand Prix Cycliste de Saguenay

Organizers hope to return in 2019

The scheduled Group of Seven (G7) summit at Le Manoir Richelieu in La Malbaie, Que. on June 8 and 9, 2018 has forced the organizers of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Saguenay to cancel the UCI America Tour 2.2 event. The race which debuted in 2008 was scheduled to take place the same weekend of the 44th G7 summit between representatives from the seven largest advanced economies in the world: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The regions security forces are being prioritized for the G7 delegates who are scheduled to travel from the Bagotville airport in Saguenay to Malbaie. This prompted the organizers to first consider changing the date of the race but finally settling to cancel it as first reported by Le Quotidien. The 2018 GP Saguenay was scheduled to run over four stages from June 7 to 10.

“The Saguenay events committee contacted the organizers to inform us that, from June 7 to 9, there would be the G7 summit in La Malbaie and that the delegates would go through Saguenay, via Bagotville airport, to go to Charlevoix,” race co-president Steve Potvin explained to Le Quotidien.

“This meant that all municipal services at the security level were 100 per cent monopolized for this event, so that we could not hold ours on that date,” Potvin said. “Since safety is a key element of the Grand Prix, it was unthinkable to hold it without the services of municipal security.”

The organizers then floated the possibility of swapping dates with the Tour de Beauce which takes place the next week but that didn’t work. The other surrounding weekends were not possible with work crews planning to pave roads and other races already on the calendar. The decision was finally made to cancel the 2018 edition and come back in 2019.

The organizers hope to make the 2019 event even bigger to attract more teams. “We are going to try to attract some stronger UCI Continental Pro teams. We even thought to add a time trial to make the competition more difficult,” said Potvin.

Organizers have notified Cycling Canada, the FQSC, and the Saguenay city and regional governments which provide financial assistance to the event about the plans to cancel the 2018 edition. The organizers said they will revisit their plans for 2019 in the spring.