The 2023 UCI World Championships was the primary version of the ‘Tremendous Worlds’, the bringing collectively nearly the entire biking disciplines aside from cyclocross and gravel. Over the course of 10 days in Glasgow and throughout Scotland, over 200 rainbow jerseys have been awarded.
This yr, the UCI Street World Championships was six weeks sooner than normal, in shut proximity to the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes. As such, the elite males’s highway race, normally the closing occasion, befell on the primary weekend whereas the elite girls’s highway race concluded the unified Worlds.
Sometimes held within the late winter, the UCI Observe World Championships have been shifted to late summer time – a timing adjustment that can assist with preparation for the Paris Olympic Video games in 2024.
A unified World Championships will likely be held each 4 years to coincide with the Summer season Olympic Video games cycle. In 2027, the following mixed championships will likely be held in Haute Savoie, France.
Have been the Biking Tremendous World Championships successful? That has nonetheless to be determined. Nevertheless the occasion sparked lot of pleasure, nice racing, polemics and so debate.
Cyclingnews brings you our six main speaking factors from the 2023 UCI Biking World Championships.
The Glasgow circuits revealed the very best riders
Earlier than the Street World Championships, riders seemed on the loopy Glasgow circuits and could not imagine what they have been seeing. There have been over 45 turns per lap – some counted 48 – and quite a few quick, steep hills and quick, technical turns.
The organisers have been accused of designing a ‘criterium World Championships’. If that is the case, Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) are superb at criteriums and much more.
Because of some luck with the climate, the various corners and town centre course did not spark too many egregious crashes. The under-23 males’s race was the only exception. Even there, Axel Laurance (France) had already proven himself to be an enormous expertise earlier than claiming the rainbow jerseys.
Have been the highway races too arduous? Seeing the faces of the riders after every occasion, it was clear that the athletes needed to completely bury themselves to win medals in Glasgow. The choices have been based mostly purely on energy, bike expertise and the need to transcend one’s limits.
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig mentioned she “misplaced depend of what number of instances I vomited”, Tadej Pogačar needed to excuse himself after his bronze medal-winning dash, and rider after rider collapsed in a heap after the end line.
Wout van Aert‘s solely criticism of the course was how arduous it was to come back again from a crash or mechanical.
“I perceive the critics, however I additionally assume that the world championships has a special course yearly, so lots of riders have a chance throughout their careers. A metropolis circuit like that is undoubtedly one thing that deserves to be in,” he concluded
Unified and August Worlds sophisticated amid a crowded girls’s highway calendar
Marlen Reusser’s shock abandon halfway by the elite girls’s particular person time trial in Stirling was all of the proof wanted to indicate the ladies’s calendar wants a rework.
Reusser cited the fatigue of focusing on the Spring Classics, then having the La Vuelta Femenina hardly one week later, adopted carefully by the Itzulia, Vuelta a Burgos, Tour de Suisse then Tour de France Femmes.
Street race podium finishers Demi Vollering and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig praised the Swiss rider for talking out, emphasising that riders want time to stability coaching and racing, and having fun with life exterior of the game. Solely new World Champion Lotte Kopecky appeared unfazed by the yr, having skipped La Vuelta Femenina and the Giro d’Italia Donne earlier than the Tour de France.
If a rider of the fortitude of Reusser struggled with the calendar, that sends a message to the UCI that the unified World Championships need to be extra fastidiously thought of in its placement amid the highway season, as does the entire racing calendar.
Whereas a rider like Kopecky can time her peak across the highway and monitor, the identical privilege is not awarded to all riders. Girls’s WorldTeams are smaller than the boys’s, and the pressure is displaying.
The opposite disciplines like monitor and MTB are much less affected by the unified Worlds as a result of their competitions are extra unfold out, however the girls’s WorldTour riders scarcely had time for a breather earlier than Glasgow and it confirmed.
“It isn’t essentially been the variety of races however the way in which it is organised,” Australian Grace Brown instructed Cyclingnews.
“It is actually heavy in some elements of the yr after which missing and others. It has been actually massive races up till from time to time till the tip of the yr, it is only a random assortment of what is left.
“I really feel like [the calendar] would not have an excellent construction and wishes slightly little bit of a rework particularly in order that riders can part their racing and goal their specialties a bit higher reasonably than simply skipping from one race to the opposite and all the time being on this identical form of degree.”
Australian director Matt White expects the calendar to vary in 2024 with the Olympic Video games coming in late July.
Already the Tour de France Femmes has been introduced for August, after the Olympics, and there are rumours La Vuelta will likely be in a brand new place reasonably than straight after the Classics. The Giro Donne is on the schedule for July, however White says it might additionally transfer to later within the season.
“I agree with Grace that slightly bit extra spacing between the races will definitely assist the planning of the athletes for his or her peak situation.”
The identical might not be mentioned for the boys, who’ve had the identical kind of calendar for his or her complete careers and have larger groups to cowl the races.
Remco Evenepoel, after successful the elite males’s time trial, famous that the proximity to the Tour de France was useful for the highway race the place, in Tokyo, many of the high 10 finishers raced the Tour, but it surely was not the case for the ITT, the place the rostrum was made up of riders who didn’t do the Tour.
“It appears like within the TT you want recent legs however within the highway race, you’ll be able to actually use the endurance from the Tour de France. It isn’t a secret anymore {that a} Grand Tour isn’t dangerous for a one-day race,” Evenepoel mentioned.
One peak for multi-discipline riders a profit
The mixed World Championships put the varied Olympic disciplines on the identical schedule forward of the Olympic Video games, which is an unlimited enchancment on earlier years, the place the Observe Worlds and Olympics have been held in the identical yr, round 5 months aside.
That meant that riders needed to plan their yr round a primary peak to qualify for the Olympics, then a second peak for the Video games themselves.
Lotte Kopecky, winner of the Factors and Elimination Races on the monitor [and road?] mentioned the brand new dates assist ease the stress.
“I prefer it – now it is one peak and I can mix each, in any other case it is stretching the season to the tip of October. It makes it much less mentally more durable than it was.”
The mixed Worlds make it considerably simpler for the multi-discipline riders like Filippo Ganna, Chloé Dygert and Kopecky, who have been capable of finding success on the monitor and in addition be aggressive within the highway occasions.
Kopecky mentioned, after successful her third rainbow jersey within the highway race, that she approached the mixed Worlds with cautious consideration to how her physique felt.
“I practice myself to take heed to my physique and the way it feels and I discovered a very good stability between coaching and having extra enjoyable off the bike.”
The UCI made their priorities clear
In bending the principles to place Mathieu van der Poel, Tom Pidcock and Peter Sagan on the fifth row forward of the place their UCI rating would have positioned them, the UCI Sport Director Peter Van Den Abeele made it clear the place the federation’s priorities lie, and it isn’t on the athletes who race mountain bikes all season.
The beginning listing remained the identical regardless of a public protest from an extended listing of the season-long mountain bike racers, with Pidcock including his help after successful the world title and described the rule change as a ‘shit present.’
“Hours earlier than the beginning of the World Championship isn’t an applicable time to selectively seek for guidelines and we due to this fact specific our deep disappointment and frustration at this example brought on by the UCI,” the riders said.
It might not be the UCI’s official press officer place, however Van Den Abeele instructed the Belgian press that issues over mountain bike’s continued inclusion within the Olympic Video games, and the status introduced by high-profile stars just like the aforementioned riders, have been behind the choice.
That appears unfair when most different riders need to battle all season for qualifying factors, particularly with Olympic qualification a part of the method.
Belgium present their highway racing skills regardless of Wout Van Aert’s silver medal
Within the combined zone following the boys’s highway race end, Jasper Stuyven responded to a query about the place Belgium went flawed within the males’s highway race with a touch of shock.
“I believe it is extra you guys who’re trying on the robust Belgian staff in a damaging gentle,” he replied.
With a silver medal and three riders within the high 10, Stuyven definitely had cause to query any suggestion of disappointment. But, so robust was the Belgian efficiency on the highway throughout the elite races due to Remco Evenepoel and Lotte Kopecky, that Wout Van Aert’s silver medal within the elite males’s highway race and one other defeat to Mathieu van der Poel stands out.
The long run appears vibrant for Belgium within the decrease age classes too, with Alec Segaert and Julie De Wilde taking silver and bronze within the under-23 males’s and girls’s time trials, leaving Belgium atop the highway medals desk however with out Van Aert in a rainbow jersey.
France have the best trigger for optimism for the longer term, with Julie Bego (France) successful the junior girls’s world title forward of British race favorite Cat Ferguson after which Axel Laurence taking the under-23 males’s highway race title. France will definitely be happy to be cultivating the celebs of tomorrow.
Host nation Nice Britain celebrated topping the monitor medals desk however lacking out on a world title within the highway occasions left them down in eleventh within the highway medals desk. It’s a place that maybe doesn’t do justice to glorious younger skills who narrowly missed gold – resembling Ferguson, Josh Tarling and Ben Wiggins however displays the present state of British highway racing.
After such a heavy medal haul, Belgium will head to the 2024 Street World Championships in Zurich with excessive expectations, whereas Nice Britain can have a degree to show.
The mixed Worlds are too massive to deal with
Glasgow proved to be gracious hosts for the highway occasions however the mass closure of town centre for an enormous number of occasions for the highway and para highway races was powerful on the native companies.
Within the first days of the Worlds, the native taxi drivers staged a strike complaining that the highway closures have been stopping them from working, regardless of a months-long marketing campaign by Get Prepared Glasgow to make sure there have been minimal disruptions.
Residents close to the end in Stirling, the place the person time trials have been held, complained that they could not go away their houses for days, that automobile parks on the native purchasing centre have been closed, and that the city’s important vacationer attraction, Stirling Citadel, was closed for the period, though Historic Atmosphere Scotland famous there have been shuttles.
The Gran Fondo occasions needed to be re-routed after residents of Perth protested in opposition to the closures that might have meant prolonged detours.
The breadth of competitors is so massive it was not possible to jot down the entire fascinating tales that would have come out of the Tremendous Worlds.
Hosts of a mixed World Championships will want a really particular mixture of venues and it is possible that the UCI will wrestle to search out hosts.
On the very least, the residents and native organisers of Haute Savoie, France, who will maintain the 2027 mixed championships, can have been trying carefully on the positives and negatives for Glasgow.