The UCI introduced one other change to its rules to begin in 2026, and whereas it’ll influence all WorldTour groups, it’ll have far better ramifications for Girls’s WorldTour groups.
The rule will prohibit groups from skipping many of the high occasions – with just one allowable absence per yr. Groups can even not choose out of the identical occasion greater than as soon as within the three-year registration cycle that determines which groups are within the WorldTour.
An announcement got here on the weekend of the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race, the place six of the 18 males’s WorldTour groups who participated within the Tour Down Underneath opted to skip the second spherical in Geelong. 5 of the 15 Girls’s WorldTour groups had been absent in each the Girls’s Tour Down Underneath and Cadel Evans races.
For the boys, participation is necessary for the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España together with the 5 Monuments (Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Il Lombardia)
The UCI may even prohibit greater than 4 UCI WorldTeams from being absent from the identical occasion.
For the ladies, the required races are the Vuelta España Femenina, Giro d’Italia Girls and Tour de France Femmes, however the different participation guidelines additionally apply.
A lot of the males’s groups solely miss one or two WorldTour occasions per season, with the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race, Eshborn-Frankfurt and the Tour of Guangxi probably the most continuously skipped by groups. EF Training-EasyPost, Intermarché-Wanty, Staff Picnic-PostNl and Jayco-AlUla are the one groups to have competed in all the WorldTour rounds for the previous two years.
Nevertheless, the ladies’s groups miss many extra of the WorldTour calendar, with even highly effective squads like Staff SD Worx-Protime selecting to not journey to Australia for the Tour Down Underneath and Cadels Evans races. Seven of the Girls’s WorldTour groups skipped the end-of-season rounds in China, the Tour of Chongming Island and the Tour of Guangxi.
Different mid-season races have seen quite a few Girls’s WorldTour groups absent together with Itzulia Basque Nation, Vuelta Burgos and Tour de Suisse.
Comply with the influence of the rule change with Cyclingnews as we survey groups and race organisers for his or her opinion.
