New particulars of main reforms to skilled biking for 2026 have emerged, with Peter Van den Abeel, the UCI’s Sports activities Director, indicating that the so-called ‘One Biking’ venture will result in fewer races and no overlaps within the WorldTour calendars.
The UCI’s 2030 Agenda doc revealed in September hinted at main reforms for 2026, when the subsequent three-year males’s WorldTour crew licences shall be awarded.
That doc talks about pooling TV rights and manufacturing and even creating a brand new firm to advertise the races. Security can be included within the reforms, with race organisers dealing with extra scrutiny and coaching of security managers early in 2023.
The long-term reforms may maybe change the steadiness of energy inside the sport and cut back the Tour de France’s dominance however usually tend to see ASO concerned within the reforms, particularly with Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme the president of the AIOCC race organisers affiliation.
The reforms for 2026 may see the creation of a brand new class or group of races, that UCI David Lappartient has dubbed the ‘UCI Champions League.’ The UCI has already created the new-format UCI Observe Champions League with organiser Discovery Sports activities Occasions that sits alongside the observe World Cup occasions.
“Inside the WorldTour, annually we’d have a lot of races, possibly 15 one-day races and 4 to 6 stage races. It’d lastly be a kind of UCI Champions League,” Lapparient mentioned in a video produced after the UCI WorldTour Seminar (opens in new tab).
“The concept is to strengthen the attractiveness of our sport in order that we will promote it even higher, broadcast it even higher, and even have races the place we don’t at the moment have them, in new areas.”
Jumbo-Visma crew supervisor Richard Plugge is the president of the AIGCP crew affiliation. He has been secretly engaged on the reforms for some time, with some particulars rising on the latest UCI WorldTour Seminar held on the finish of November.
“We will lastly get the sleeping large, as I’d name biking, and wake him up and get the enterprise potential out of the game,” Plugge mentioned.
Van den Abeele confirmed the doubtless important adjustments to the race calendar in the course of the Play Sports activities (opens in new tab) podcast, whereas in dialog with broadcaster José De Cauwer.
“We’ll not permit overlaps and there shall be fewer races,” Van den Abeele mentioned. “This 12 months we’ve had a whole lot of conversations about reforming street biking on the initiative of the UCI and the groups.
“These talks have been led by Richard Plugge and Patrick Lefevere (of QuickStep). We’ve had many conferences about TV rights, enhancing the biking product and rearranging the calendar. It was from a clean piece of paper.”