Track cycling trade teams like Canada’s Pedal 2 the Medal will be excluded from World Cup events come 2020
Rebranded series will have fewer rounds and run in the summer
Next season’s track cycling World Cup season will be the last with trade teams like Canada’s Pedal 2 the Medal and Britain’s Huub-Wattbike Test Team competing, the UCI announced last week. This new team exclusion is just one of several sweeping changes to the series.
Last season several trade teams like Pedal 2 the Medal, Huub-Wattbike, BEAT Cycling Club of the Netherlands, GazProm-RusVelo and Holy Brothers Cycling Team raced in the series. BEAT earned eight medals.
The Twitter reaction was a harsh one.
"Encourage dialogue between stakeholders prior decision" UCI says. Our club is running one of the best UCI track teams in the world, working hard to advance the sport. And we are not aware of these actions and have to read this via press release. Well done @UCI_cycling! pic.twitter.com/1efr0YSXZs
— BEAT Cycling (@beatcyclingclub) June 22, 2019
The asshat clowns at @UCI_cycling seems determined to kill off track cycling. https://t.co/c0fJt88bK0
— andy gerrie (@andygerrie) June 21, 2019
This sounds like a joke, are you trying to kill off track cycling?
— Atomic High Perf (@AtomicHighPerf) June 23, 2019
Classic UCI, useless… less events? Less athletes? Less jobs? Brilliant. Well done. Time for someone else to take track cycling to the next level.
— Matt Holland (@m4th014nd) June 21, 2019
Rebranded as the Track Cycling Nations’ Cup, there will be fewer rounds, with three in 2020 down from six, and the competition will be run in the summer instead of the winter. The world championships will be held in October instead of March.
The 2019-2020 series begins in Minsk, Ukraine on November 1 to 3 and concludes in Milton on January 24 to 26, with the 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships taking place in Berlin on 26 February-1 March.
2019-2020 UCI Track Cycling World Cup
Minsk (Belarus), 1-3 November 2019
Glasgow (Great Britain), 8-10 November 2019
Hong Kong (China), 29 November-1 December 2019
Cambridge (New Zealand), 6-8 December 2019
Brisbane (Australia), 13-15 December 2019
Milton (Canada), 24-26 January 2020
2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, Berlin, Germany, 26 February-1 March