UCI’s promotional arm realises that “basic conditions… cannot be met” by second Chinese WorldTour race

The International Cycling Union (UCI) has announced that the Tour of Hangzhou has been withdrawn from the WorldTour calendar for the second straight year, with the race still to even have its first edition. The five-day race was to have been organised by the UCI’s globalisation and promotional arm, Global Cycling Promotions (GCP), but the event has been called off with after the GCP realised “that the basic conditions for organising a race at UCI WorldTour level would not be met in the short term.”



The news was announced at a meeting of the Professional Cycling Council (PCC) in Geneva, Switzerland, today.



The Tour of Hangzhou, which was to have become the second such event in the UCI’s top calendar, was first announced in February 2012, and was to be the final event of last year’s WorldTour. The event was cancelled at that time for similar reasons, however, and the Tour of Beijing - another GCP event - was the season closer for last year. This season the Hangzhou race was to be run between October 9th and 13th, with Beijing run between October 16th and 20th.



With the Tour of Hangzhou now off the calendar, GCP requested to the PCC that the Tour of Beijing be moved forward by five days to fill what would be a wide gap in the calendar. The PCC agreed that the Tour of Beijing will now be held between October 11th and 15th.



In addition to the cancellation and movement of the Chinese stage races, the PCC approved “a project aiming to increase the attraction of races which will be carried out in 2013 in collaboration with the organisers of two UCI WorldTour events.” In a move that hits a little towards what has been proposed by advocates of the World Series of Cycling, these events - which are to be “selected in the next few days” - will have teams of just six riders, and will set up a new system of bonus points decided at intermediate sprints.



In other business accountant Ernst and Young gave an overall picture of the “economic evolution” of professional teams, while Lausanne University’s Institute of Sport Science presented “a model for the evaluation of the risk of doping within teams with regards to their structure.”