UCI fires Gravel World Championships race organizer PP Sports activities, nonetheless with out affirmation of recent course or promotor

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With simply six weeks till the second annual UCI Gravel World Championships, the occasion is with no race organizer — or a course.

On Tuesday August 22, the Italian biking media outlet Tuttobici reported that PP Sports activities, the corporate tasked with producing the primary two years of the world championships occasion, has had its contract with the UCI revoked by the governing physique and can now not be tasked with organizing the 2023 occasion.

The occasion continues to be on the UCI calendar for October 7-8 within the Veneto area of Italy; nonetheless, the Tuttobici report indicated that website inspectors from the UCI had been doing a course inspection within the Treviso space, particularly across the UNESCO World Heritage Website of the Prosecco Hills relatively than a return to Vicenza and Cittadella, the positioning of final yr’s race.

Velo reached out to Erwin Vervecken, the director of the UCI Gravel World Sequence, for remark. Vervecken stated he was on the positioning go to on Tuesday and Wednesday however wouldn’t reveal the place that website was. “We’ll talk the main points in a UCI-coordinated press launch very quickly,” he stated.

In keeping with Tuttobici, Massimo Panighel, who has organized varied nationwide and worldwide occasions together with the 2011 and 2018 MTB Marathon World Championships, is rumored to be the brand new race organizer.

In an interview with information outlet Italy24 on Thursday, August 24, Panighel all however confirmed this to be true.

“On August 16 I used to be on trip in Auronzo di Cadore (Bl). I get a telephone name. It’s the UCI that asks for my availability to prepare the World Championship. I settle for by putting very clear circumstances and ensures on tv protection. The remainder? It’s simply discuss,” Panighel informed Italy24.

Though that is solely the second UCI Gravel World Championships, it’s additionally the second time that the UCI has struggled within the lead-up to the occasion. Final yr, the announcement of each the dates and placement of the world championships had been delayed, making it troublesome for a lot of potential contributors to decide to the occasion. The route was not revealed till simply three weeks earlier than the occasion.

The route and race itself then prompted a number of controversies. In contrast to conventional gravel racing within the US, the UCI occasion featured a shorter course for girls. The course was additionally thought to misrepresent gravel racing; it featured lower than 800 meters of elevation acquire and included 25 % tarmac. Most riders raced on highway bikes. Moreover, contributors discovered simply earlier than the beginning line that call-ups would favor riders who had UCI factors from their respective disciplines — which put American gravel racers close to the again.

In keeping with Panighel in the Italy24 interview, the UCI is looking for to handle no less than a few of these points, particularly the problem of the course.

“The UCI has requested for a extra demanding observe than that of 2022,” he stated. “The state of affairs is consistently evolving even when the fulcrum might be Pieve di Soligo [a town in Treviso]. Course between 150 and 180 km with 2,000 meters of distinction in altitude for the Elite Males check. First part in all chance in line then three completely different circuits that can wind between the Prosecco hills and the foothills.”

Final yr, Belgian highway professional Gianni Vermeersch claimed the primary elite males’s title, whereas French cross-country celebrity Pauline Ferrand-Prevot gained the ladies’s title in a hat trick of off-road world championship titles.