Multi-discipline Glasgow 2023 World Championships date announced
Multi-discipline Glasgow 2023 World Championships date announced
The UCI’s ‘mega World Championships’ is set to take place in Glasgow over an 11-day period, from August 3 to 13, 2023. Glasgow, Scotland will host a series of track, road, BMX, and mountain bike World Championship events at the same time for the first time ever. The governing body is aiming to combine the different cycling disciplines at a single World Championship every four years, the year before the Olympic Games.
“Today’s announcement of the dates is an important milestone in the organisation of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships,” UCI president David Lappartient said. “Bringing our existing UCI World Championships together at the same time and in one venue every four years was one of my visions before my election as UCI President in 2017. We have been working towards this ever since.”
Lappartient hopes that combining the cycling disciplines in one World Championship event will transform the sport as a whole.
A total of 190 rainbow jerseys will be awarded throughout the road cycling, road para-cycling, track, track para-cycling, cross country mountain biking, downhill mountain biking, mountain bike marathon, trials, BMX freestyle, BMX, artistic cycling, cycle-ball, and gran fondo events.
Cyclocross will remain in its traditional January slot, and track cycling has already shifted their dates from February in 2020 to October in 2021. The 2022 Track World Championships will take place in September.
The August dates are earlier in the season than road riders are used to. Traditionally held after the men’s Grand Tours have wrapped up, they will instead take place in between the Tour de France and the final Grand Tour La Vuelta a España.
The UCI also announced the venues that will host the swarms of cyclists during the event. Most notably, the Sir Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow will be host to the track while the road cycling events will start in Geroge Square, in Glasgow’s city centre.
Some events will explore Dumfries and Galloway, south of Glasgow.
“This will quite simply be the biggest cycling event ever held and we are proud that venues in Glasgow and across Scotland will be used to create cycling history,” said Chair of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships Paul Bush.
Each of the disciplines will revert to individual world championships held annually for the intervening years of each four-year cycle.
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