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Cyclo-cross as a Winter Olympic Sport

Greetings, fellow cyclo-cross fans.
I have been watching a lot of cyclo-cross racing this year and it has occurred to me that it would fit in very well with the winter Olympics.
Question is why has this not happened (qm)
I am curious to know if the IOC has been approached in the past to include the sport on the list that includes silly sports like, say, Skeleton. Seriously, who grows up wanting to be a skeleton racer (qm) We could go on and on about the silly winter Olympic sports, but it seems to me that cyclo-cross would be an awesome addition.
We all know that pretty much everyone can lay face down and toboggan down an icy track. All it takes is will to slide down faster than your opponent.
Cyclo-cross is an actual measure of skill and strength.
Come on, fellow cyclo-cross fans. Let s make this happen.
 
Greetings, fellow cyclo-cross fans.
I have been watching a lot of cyclo-cross racing this year and it has occurred to me that it would fit in very well with the winter Olympics.
Question is why has this not happened (qm)
I am curious to know if the IOC has been approached in the past to include the sport on the list that includes silly sports like, say, Skeleton. Seriously, who grows up wanting to be a skeleton racer (qm) We could go on and on about the silly winter Olympic sports, but it seems to me that cyclo-cross would be an awesome addition.
We all know that pretty much everyone can lay face down and toboggan down an icy track. All it takes is will to slide down faster than your opponent.
Cyclo-cross is an actual measure of skill and strength.
Come on, fellow cyclo-cross fans. Let s make this happen.
Yes, it should be. Unfortunately, the higher ups don't want to make it happen. Apparently, little over 10 years ago it was on the agenda, but it was one of the seasons where Nys was destroying the competition, and after he also won the WC (his first), they decided the sport was too miniature and easily dominated by a select number of athletes. I'm guessing "unlike dozens of other sports".

It would also be great for the sport, because one of the main reasons mountainbike became more popular, was due to it being an olympic discipline. You have CX riders that actually start riding MTB just to be able to compete at the olympics.


errrr.............i don't think so

i live in area unsuited to winter olympic sport......hope it stays that way

whatever next?...wiggo thinking he's a ski jumper..............jamaicans thinking they

are the best at bob sleighing...................
When you die, i will start a petition for scientists to disect your brain, because some glorious stuff must be going on in there.
 
Thanks, LIYF. I totally agree--endorsing the sport would open doors to competitors in different countries.
If dominance of one or two different countries is the reason for overlooking a discipline, then women's hockey should have never been introduced.
We all know Gold is going to be won by Canada or the U.S. But the recognition alone has spearheaded programs in a lot of countries, and they are catching up.
 
Thanks, LIYF. I totally agree--endorsing the sport would open doors to competitors in different countries.
If dominance of one or two different countries is the reason for overlooking a discipline, then women's hockey should have never been introduced.
We all know Gold is going to be won by Canada or the U.S. But the recognition alone has spearheaded programs in a lot of countries, and they are catching up.
Cross would be a great addition . . . but most of the recent additions to the winter olympics are obviously YouTube snippets/Xgames type events like skicross, aerials, etc, not so much classic endurance sports. Aerials drives me nuts because it's essentially just gymnastics with a tiny amount of skiing. Given that's the current emphasis they might as well bring back barrel jumping (on skates) which was a medal sport at one time.
 
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Would be great to see it in the Winter Olympics; and whilst the woman's side is super competitive, and quite international - the mens just isn't. The top 15 is mainly Belgians with maybe 1 or 2 Dutch. That's never going to sell to Olympic officials, especially as those two countries are small TV markets world wide.
Until we see a top 15 with Germans, US, Russians, Chinese, etc involved, it's not going to happen.
 
Would be great to see it in the Winter Olympics; and whilst the woman's side is super competitive, and quite international - the mens just isn't. The top 15 is mainly Belgians with maybe 1 or 2 Dutch. That's never going to sell to Olympic officials, especially as those two countries are small TV markets world wide.
Until we see a top 15 with Germans, US, Russians, Chinese, etc involved, it's not going to happen.
While that may very well be the case, the fact that they have neglected to turn the sport into an Olympic discipline is one of the main reasons why the sport is being dominated by 2 countries. There used to be a lot of Czech, Swiss, Italian... riders. There was a time nobody cared about Mountainbike until they made it an Olympic discipline. Now all those riders turn to Mountainbike instead of CX simply because it is an Olympic discipline. So it's a self fulfilling prophecy, and a situation they created themselves by denying it for so long. It would be a great addition to winter Olympics, because it is like nothing in the winter lineup.

Also a bit amazed by your statement that womens CX is very competitive unlike mens. It's being dominated by the Dutch women more than men's elite is being dominated by Belgians. Yes, there are a few other nations that can battle for 5-10th spots, but at the end of the day, it's more than likely going to be a Dutch girl winning.

And if they are going to deny it based on which countries it is big in, then they never should have started with about half the disciplines. The moment they announce the sport to go Olympic, you'll see other nations flock to it. Mark my words.
 

Wouldn't an olympic recognition benefit the sport more? Wouldn't the sport boom worldwide if it were placed on the olympic calendar?

Van den Abeele: "Presidents of the UCI and IOC are in talks about this"

"Ice and snow are needed per definition to include the sport and turn it into an olympic winter sport, we know. The new World Cup in the Suisse Villars is a testcase as such, in the Alps at 1300m altitude."

"Becoming a demonstration sport at the winter Olympics in Italy 2026: that would be a nice objective. We're trying to work towards that goal."
 
Good news. I've often wondered why they've never had a snow round of the World Cup.....Whilst you can never guarantee snow, holding an event in a venue were they normally get snow would be something. So, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Czech Rep, etc all have ski/ winter sport venues.....
 
Cyclocross takes place during the winter because some of the riders combine it with the road or mountain bike the rest of the year. I'm not really a fan of riding on snow and ice. Cross-country running isn't Olympic for the same reason - a sport that would deserve more attention as well.
 
Cyclocross takes place during the winter because some of the riders combine it with the road or mountain bike the rest of the year.
lol, mountainbike wasn't invented for decades when CX was ridden during the winter. Whatever the origin, it's a wintersport and when it snows, it snows. There is no reason why you couldn't have a course specifically in the snow (just like there are specific sand crosses, or climbing crosses) once every 4 years. Especially when it would boost the sport tremendously.
 
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I don’t think cyclo cross really suits a winter Olympic venue, races are generally mud and rain with the occasional snow, and summer would be to dry and hard, though the “winter sport” of football is at summer olympics
Snow represents the sport and the essence of it a hell of a lot more than a hard, dry dirt track where they get speeds almost like on the road. It's just one race in 4 years, i frankly find it unbelievable that people on a cycling forum would female dog about that and completely ignore the positive implications it would certainly have for the sport worldwide.
 
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I'm all for it.

I still am ashamed that I missed the Druivencross race that was held on snow (at least the first races of the day) a few years back and that there is no video of it anywhere online apart from a couple of highlight videos.

Bieles WC had a couple of races of that weekend on snow too and I don't see it how they were lesses crosses than the others.
 
I don't think most of us are saying that we really don't want that scale of coverage and prestige, but we acknowledge that:
A) high mountains and deep snow are not the normal environment for CX (and we don't really want it it become so),
B) the principle of winter olympic sports is the low friction coefficient of snow and ice, and that is not fundamental to cyclocross.


If there is a movement to develop some sort of non-motorised version of ice speedway, or if the UCI want to get behind Ice Track cycling, so be it, but neither the location not the attitude towards snow and ice make WOG and CX highly compatible.
 
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I don't think most of us are saying that we really don't want that scale of coverage and prestige, but we acknowledge that:
A) high mountains and deep snow are not the normal environment for CX (and we don't really want it it become so),
B) the principle of winter olympic sports is the low friction coefficient of snow and ice, and that is not fundamental to cyclocross.
What is fundamental to cyclocross, is that 75% of what the race ends up being, is determined by winter weather conditions. Snow, being a weather condition, frequently manifesting during winter, i am told. Nobody is saying CX needs to become an exclusive snow sport and one race in 4 years won't make it so. Just like nobody wants it to become only mud, only sand, only cobbles...

Everybody agrees that the sport needs to become more international, with more races (again, just like in the past!) in Czech rep, in Suisse, in Austria... where you often get... snow. And that we need to get away from the same Belgian/Dutch flat parcours in some farmer's backyard.
 
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A) high mountains and deep snow are not the normal environment for CX (and we don't really want it it become so),

It doesn't need to be held in high mountains and/or deep snow.

In the past 20 years, the WOG were headquartered in Nagano (371m), Salt Lake (1288m), Turin (239m), Vancouver (0-152m), Sochi (65m), Pyeongchang (750m) and the next editions will be in Beijing (44m) and Milan (120m)/Cortina d'Ampezzo (1224m).

As always, some sports take place on the high mountains and some on the host cities with artificial snow/ice. The cyclocross can easily take part in some intermediate place which, given his altitude/location, doesn't happen to be in the mountains and have deep snow.

In Biathlon there are World Cup competitions in the city of Gelsenkirchen, 56m a.s.l. with artificial tracks being prepared for that. The same can happen for a CX race, with an artificial track being prepared for that.
 
I don't think most of us are saying that we really don't want that scale of coverage and prestige, but we acknowledge that:
A) high mountains and deep snow are not the normal environment for CX (and we don't really want it it become so)

I wouldn't mind that; if it wants to grow and develop, then CX has to be more than mud & fields. Any sport that stays the same, goes backwards. Why shouldn't there be a greater variety in courses. What if a country in the Southern hemisphere made a bid for the Worlds?
I think back to XC MTB from 10-15+ years ago; they were pretty tame courses over a long lap, were fitness was the main requirement, and they weren't too technical. Now they've become shorter, easier for TV, but a true technical test of riders.
The easy thing is to do nothing, and the sport stays as it is.......were many successful/ promising riders jump to road/ MTB because of better opportunities.
 
Snow represents the sport and the essence of it a hell of a lot more than a hard, dry dirt track where they get speeds almost like on the road. It's just one race in 4 years, i frankly find it unbelievable that people on a cycling forum would female dog about that and completely ignore the positive implications it would certainly have for the sport worldwide.
Sorry to interrupt, but the "people on a cycling forum would female dog" comment is worth repeating. That is funny. Well done, good sir.
 

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