The apex cycling body, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), today, revealed the dates and venues of all the rounds of the 2017-2018 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup. These rounds have been awarded to the following cities:
- Pruszków (Poland), November 3-5, 2017
- Manchester (Great Britain), November 10-12, 2017
- Milton (Canada), December 1-3, 2017
- Santiago (Chile), December 9-10, 2017
- Minsk (Belarus), January 19-21, 2018.
With these announcements, UCI has tried to take Cycling to new locations across the globe as except Manchester, all the organising cities of the 2017-2018 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup are new to track cycling’s leading international series.
Another interesting feature of this calendar is the growth it has had in past few seasons, the UCI Track Cycling World Cup calendar has grown consistently in the last few years, from three rounds in 2015-2016, to four in 2016-2017 and now five for the next season, a number that hasn’t been seen since the 2008-2009 edition of the series.
New venues
Pruszków (Poland): Poland’s first covered velodrome, the BGŻ BNP Paribas Arena in Pruszków, hosted the European Championships in 2008 and the UCI World Championships in 2009. It houses the Union Cycliste de Pologne and its national training centre.
Milton (Canada): The Mattamy National Cycling Centre in Milton, Ontario, is also the Canadian Cycling Association’s training centre. Built to welcome the 2015 Pan American Games, the velodrome in Milton will now go one step further by hosting its first major international competition, the first in a series of other events planned for the coming years.
Santiago (Chile): The Parque Peñalolén velodrome in Santiago, the capital of Chile, was built for the ODESUR South American Games in 2014 before hosting the Pan-American Championships the following year. This velodrome, built to the latest international standards, contributes to the development of track cycling in Latin America, and this first UCI World Cup round to be held there is a demonstration of the UCI’s desire to promote the sport’s globalisation.
Manchester (Great Britain): Inaugurated in 1994, the HSBC UK National Cycling Centre in Manchester has been home of British Cycling and its facilities since 2004. A number of international track events have been held there, such as the UCI World Championships (1996, 2000 and 2008) and the UCI World Cup on a regular basis since 2004-2005. Second round of the 2017-2018 season, Manchester returns to track cycling’s leading series after its last appearance in 2013-2014.
Minsk (Belarus): Opened in 2008, the Velodrome Minsk-Arena hosted the European Track Cycling Championships the following year, then the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2013. The capital of Belarus joins the 2017-2018 UCI Track Cycling World Cup thanks in large part to the implication of eight-time UCI World Champion Natallia Tsylinskaya, former specialist of the sprint disciplines, who is now President of the Belarusian Cycling Federation.
During these events, the 12 events featuring on the programme of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will be raced at each round of the Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup:
• Individual sprint, men and women
• Team sprint, men and women
• Keirin, men and women
• Team pursuit, men and women
• Madison, men and women
• Omnium, men and women.
Also in the event schedule, the organisers also had the opportunity to include other events that feature on the programme of the UCI World Championships: the kilometre (500m for women) time trial, individual pursuit, points race or Scratch.
The detailed programme of each round of the 2017-2018 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup can be found here.
Madison and BMX Freestyle Park were recently added to Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Programme.