UCI celebrates World Championships success and considers a CX World Cup in New York

With the cyclocross season concluded with the World Championships, the UCI reviews a spectacular campaign and considers changes for the next one. Although it is usual to know it after the celebration of the World Championships, we will still have to wait a couple of weeks until the calendar of the next edition of the World Cup is definitively confirmed.

The UCI dreams of internationalizing the Cyclo-cross World Cup

The calendar for the next cyclocross season is normally approved and released by the UCI during the traditional meeting of all involved at the World Championships venue. However, this year there are still several issues to be resolved so the highest cycling body has decided to postpone the publication of the 2023/24 calendar until next February 24th.

In any case, the season could not have ended better, with the eyes of the world on the most important mud event to enjoy the dream duel between the two greatest exponents of cyclocross, which ended up being resolved after an hour of intense emotion, in the last meters.

Speaking to the Belgian media Sporza, Peter Van den Abeele, responsible for off-road disciplines of the UCI highlighted the success of the World Championship held in Hoogerheide with a tremendously crowded public attendance, "it was a World Championship like before the Covid. Unfortunately, there is only one winner, but the sport definitely wins," said the Belgian coach, who also praised the good work of Adrie Van der Poel, Mathieu's father, in organizing the event, which went perfectly.

Van den Abeele took the opportunity to review the season just ended, making it clear that the UCI is committed to the internationalization of the World Cup after the races in Dublin and Benidorm worked much better than expected, while hinting that London and Berlin had many chances to be part of the next edition.

However, this conflicts with the cyclists' opinion that there are too many events on the calendar, in addition to the higher travel costs that push the budgets of the federations and organizers to the limit. Complaints that were reflected in a poor turnout in Fayetteville, a venue that last year had already seen notable absences despite hosting the World Championships, a small city that was difficult to reach after the Waterloo event.

In fact, Van den Abeele suggested that in the 2023/24 cyclocross season there will probably be a single race in the United States. Here comes into play the candidacy of New York to organize a World Cup event and, although its presence in the next season has not been decided, the head of the UCI did not hide that they are in negotiations with the big apple. A possibility also confirmed by Tomas Van den Spiegel, CEO of Flanders Classics, organizer of the World Cup races.

In any case, Van den Abeele settled the discussion on the number of races, "I don't think there are too many. We have to keep on moving to the big cities and we have to keep the classics".

For his part, Van den Spiegel downplayed the intentions of cycling's highest body: "The UCI dreams of internationalizing the World Cup, but we have to face reality: the success of cyclocross in Belgium is holding back this internationalization. New York may be the center of the world for many people, but the economic center of cyclocross remains in Belgium."