General News Thread

[Wyndbrook]

Jonas World Champion 2025 & 2027 you love to see it

Maybe, as long as he gets around to entering.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

New participation rules for WT events will be introduced for the next 3 year cycle. All WT teams still have to take part in GTs and monuments, but they can now only choose to skip one WT race a year, and they can't skip the same race more than once each cycle. Only four teams may be absent from the same race.
So this means that the rule regarding the newer WT races will no longer apply.

The press release then says the same rules will also come into effect for women's WT teams, but only for the three GT-ish races. That is however a little confusing, since they've introduced two different rules above, so I don't know if that means they'll have to participate in them or they're allowed to skip one of them each year.

Lappartient is quoted as saying “By modifying the participation rules for the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour, organisers, riders and fans can be sure that all events in these two leading series for men’s and women’s professional road cycling will feature the best teams in the world", which that sort of implies that the GT-ish races will be mandatory and the skipping rule will then apply to all other WWT races.

Link to the press release, which also features some other news

 

[yaco]

Think the UCI could have made it two WT races. A one day race and a stage race. My guess is the missing race will more often be a stage race.

 

[Unchained]

New participation rules for WT events will be introduced for the next 3 year cycle. All WT teams still have to take part in GTs and monuments, but they can now only choose to skip one WT race a year, and they can't skip the same race more than once each cycle. Only four teams may be absent from the same race.
So this means that the rule regarding the newer WT races will no longer apply.

The press release then says the same rules will also come into effect for women's WT teams, but only for the three GT-ish races. That is however a little confusing, since they've introduced two different rules above, so I don't know if that means they'll have to participate in them or they're allowed to skip one of them each year.

Lappartient is quoted as saying “By modifying the participation rules for the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour, organisers, riders and fans can be sure that all events in these two leading series for men’s and women’s professional road cycling will feature the best teams in the world", which that sort of implies that the GT-ish races will be mandatory and the skipping rule will then apply to all other WWT races.

Link to the press release, which also features some other news

There must be some cooperation about use of rebreathing and testing. So you can use it for a test and then 2 weeks later to accumulate results. This sounds difficult to use as performance enhancement.
Once riders are on the road, sounds pretty laborious to go to authorized facilities for additional test, retest cycle in 2 weeks, guess it could be done.. And it sounds like team(s) would need their own accredited facility. Sounds expensive and complicated.
Take something like Mallorca , Alula,TDU you would have to book return travel very close to facility or maybe have a map of available accredited facilities and travel to one for the " test " and then again in 2 weeks for " retest ".

 

[Rob5091]

This might be problems for the likes of Lotto if they don't get more sponsorship -

Under this new rule, it will be mandatory for all UCI WorldTeams to compete in the three Grand Tours (Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and La Vuelta Ciclista a España) and the five Monuments (Milano-Sanremo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Il Lombardia). From the remaining events on the UCI WorldTour calendar, UCI WorldTeams will be able to choose one event in which they do not compete.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

This might be problems for the likes of Lotto if they don't get more sponsorship -

There would be some marginal costs, but travel and hotel expenses are, I believe, the race organiser's responsibility (including for staff up to equal to the number of riders)

 

[Samamba]

This might be problems for the likes of Lotto if they don't get more sponsorship -

Your comment doesn't make sense. Why would it be more problematic for them compared to the previous rule. Now they can actually skip Down Under again for example (I wouldn't do that, it's easy points if you go with a decent team but ok).

There's going to be plenty of teams wanting to skip the Australia trip, that's for sure. Catalunya/Itzulia will also get some absent WT teams.

 

[Leadbelly]

There's going to be plenty of teams wanting to skip the Australia trip, that's for sure.

Surely this new rule will mean you can't skip both TDU and CEGORR? or are they retaining the ability to skip newer WT events (CEGORR, Gaungxi, UAE etc) in addition to this?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Surely this new rule will mean you can't skip both TDU and CEGORR? or are they retaining the ability to skip newer WT events (CEGORR, Gaungxi, UAE etc) in addition to this?

They will be allowed to skip both of them once every three years, but not in the same year.

 

[tobydawq]

They will be allowed to skip both of them once every three years, but not in the same year.

Right, so noone is going to miss the TDU.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Righr, so noone is going to miss the TDU.

Probably not, no. Teams obting out of CEGORR, like Visma did yesterday, will possibly still happen, but I would find it likely that teams want to save their get out of race jail free cards for later in the season.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

So is it the first 4 to send in their nominated "holiday" each year that get to miss China, or is there priority according to the rankings?

 

[Samamba]

Surely this new rule will mean you can't skip both TDU and CEGORR? or are they retaining the ability to skip newer WT events (CEGORR, Gaungxi, UAE etc) in addition to this?

Yeah I realized that myself last night. The one race most teams want to skip they can't lmao. Both Canada and Australia trips are basically mandatory now.

 

[Samamba]

So is it the first 4 to send in their nominated "holiday" each year that get to miss China, or is there priority according to the rankings?

Giangxi has been skippable since its WT existence and has always at least 14 WT teams at the start, so that won't be a problem.

Down Under/Cadel Evans is basically the only trip that a lot of teams really want to skip, but it looks like that's not even possible now. Maybe some teams start skipping Tirreno or PN if they don't have enough riders for those races and rather prepare classics with a training camp, but it's probably going to be some teams skipping UAE (some French teams skip it every year), some teams wantin to skip Itzulia or even Catalunya, and a few teams Guangxi or maybe even Poland.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I could also see the new Copenhagen event getting skipped by some teams who don’t have a lot of sprinters, it’s at such an awkward spot on the current calendar and together with Pologne it’s the least conveniently located European WT race.

On the flip side, said race could also induce some skips of Suisse as that now overlaps with two WT races rather than only Dauphiné.

This does assume that the new system won’t be accompanied by a small calendar reshuffle. Definitely a few races on the (WT) calendar that don’t have a spot that works now (glares at the awful Strade/Tirreno/Milano-Torino re-ordering).

 

[RedheadDane]

I could also see the new Copenhagen event getting skipped by some teams who don’t have a lot of sprinters,

Hold on... I thought the rule meant that now teams can skip one of the pre 2018 WT races (apart from GTs and Monuments), while the races added to the WT after the calendar got expanded are can still be skipped as much as the teams want.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Hold on... I thought the rule meant that now teams can skip one of the pre 2018 WT races (apart from GTs and Monuments), while the races added to the WT after the calendar got expanded are can still be skipped as much as the teams want.

You could, you know, read the other posts about the same thing.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Hold on... I thought the rule meant that now teams can skip one of the pre 2018 WT races (apart from GTs and Monuments), while the races added to the WT after the calendar got expanded are can still be skipped as much as the teams want.

I don't think so. There were two lists (pre-2018 and post-2018), now there are two different lists (GT/Monuments and all the others); it used to be that a WT could drop any of the second list, now they can only drop one of the second list each year, and any particular event once in three years.

 

[RedheadDane]

You could, you know, read the other posts about the same thing.

The other posts didn't seem clear about it.

So is it the first 4 to send in their nominated "holiday" each year that get to miss China, or is there priority according to the rankings?

Hopefully, if a race doesn't have enough WT teams racing, it'll cease being a WT race; like Turkey.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The other posts didn't seem clear about it.

I personally found this post quite informative

New participation rules for WT events will be introduced for the next 3 year cycle. All WT teams still have to take part in GTs and monuments, but they can now only choose to skip one WT race a year, and they can't skip the same race more than once each cycle. Only four teams may be absent from the same race.
So this means that the rule regarding the newer WT races will no longer apply.

The press release then says the same rules will also come into effect for women's WT teams, but only for the three GT-ish races. That is however a little confusing, since they've introduced two different rules above, so I don't know if that means they'll have to participate in them or they're allowed to skip one of them each year.

Lappartient is quoted as saying “By modifying the participation rules for the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour, organisers, riders and fans can be sure that all events in these two leading series for men’s and women’s professional road cycling will feature the best teams in the world", which that sort of implies that the GT-ish races will be mandatory and the skipping rule will then apply to all other WWT races.

Link to the press release, which also features some other news

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Hopefully, if a race doesn't have enough WT teams racing, it'll cease being a WT race; like Turkey.

Yeah, that's not how it works. Instead the teams will be punished for not showing up, if they've not been allowed to skip the race.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeah, that's not how it works. Instead the teams will be punished for not showing up, if they've not been allowed to skip the race.

Yeah, but if all the a majority of teams use their anual skip-card for China, then there's really nothing organisers can do.

I personally found this post quite informative

Maybe it was just wistfull thinking; hoping that this would increase teams' ability to skip races, not restrict it.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Yeah, but if all the a majority of teams use their anual skip-card for China, then there's really nothing organisers can do.

As Armchair's post also described, only a maximum of four teams will be allowed to skip the same race, so this won't be an issue.

Maybe it was just wistfull thinking; hoping that this would increase teams' ability to skip races, not restrict it.

Do you mean whistful thinking? In case you really love your card games.

 

[tobydawq]

Yeah, but if all the a majority of teams use their anual skip-card for China, then there's really nothing organisers can do.



Maybe it was just wistfull thinking; hoping that this would increase teams' ability to skip races, not restrict it.

Again, it is explained in Samu's post that only four teams are allowed to skip the same race...

 

[RedheadDane]

Again, it is explained in Samu's post that only four teams are allowed to skip the same race...

Okay, I didn't read that post because it didn't change the fact that I - due to whistful thinking - thought that the new rule meant teams would be allowed to skip more races, not fewer.
And I certainly didn't expect a rule so *** stupid that it doesn't even allow teams to collectively declare a race not worthy for WT status by a majority deciding to skip a race.

But I guess UCI really wants to make sure a majority of teams ride their pet projects...