Trofeo Binda postponed; actually has a new date pencilled in
The list of high-profile races that have been impacted by the ongoing coronavirus crisis continues to grow, with one of the highest profile one-day races in the Women’s WorldTour, Trofeo Binda, also affected.
Trofeo Binda – originally scheduled for March 22 – is one of the longest-running women’s races in the calendar, with 44 editions stretching back to 1974. The race runs through the beleaguered Lombardy region of Italy – the European epicentre of coronavirus – so its outlook had been shaky for a couple of weeks. With a recent Italian government decree restricting public gatherings to combat the spread of the virus, followed by the news of Strade Bianche’s rescheduling, it was no great surprise for Trofeo Binda to officially follow suit with a postponement.
Where Trofeo Binda differs from Strade Bianche is that it actually has a new date pencilled in for UCI approval:
#trbinda see you in june pic.twitter.com/BIfghHrx68
— Trofeo Binda (@TrofeoBinda) March 5, 2020
The proposed June 2 timeslot – coinciding with Italy’s national day, this year falling on a Tuesday – would at least theoretically give a sizeable audience and interest for the race.
The Women’s WorldTour calendar for 2020 has already seen cuts as a result of coronavirus, with May’s Tour of Chongming Island also postponed until further notice. As a result, despite a busy racing calendar in May, there are now no WorldTour-level races for the stretch from Liege-Bastogne-Liege in late April through to Trofeo Binda’s new slot more than a month later.
As this week has shown, it’s a fast-developing situation and there’s a fair wedge of time between then and now for the threat of coronavirus to either worsen or weaken. Nonetheless, it’s at least heartening to see that there’s some chance that we might see one of women’s cycling’s most important races able to run in 2020.
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