Bet you didn’t have this on your Bingo Card. BMX and other disciplines may affect WorldTour licences. The UCI is looking at a new plan that would allow points from multiple disciplines to contribute to the WorldTour team classification, which determines which teams receive the WorldTour licences. As of right now, teams earn these licences based solely on points accumulated from road races. (Which…sort of makes sense?) But now, that might change. Teams could also accumulate points from the track, mountain biking, gravel races, and BMX events.
Rewarding teams that embrace multiple disciplines
UCI sports director Peter Van den Abeele explained the new idea, which seems…odd. “What we will strive for is that points from other disciplines will count toward the team classification that determines WorldTour licences,” he said to Sporza. This change would reward teams that raced in a variety of cycling disciplines. That would provide a somewhat unprecedented (and weird) incentive for multidisciplinary teams.
Take a team like Ineos, he explained, which has a guy like Filippo Ganna competing in major track events. They would benefit from this change, as they currently do not earn WorldTour points for track performances. “We want to discuss and change that,” Van den Abeele said.
Van den Abeele, a former pro, made these remarks at the launch of the 2024/2025 UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Antwerp, Belgium, where he highlighted the broader vision for the future of cycling. Speaking about the proposed changes to the WorldTour system, Van den Abeele explained the UCI’s goal of incorporating points from various disciplines into the team classification for WorldTour licences.
Additionally, teams with riders in multiple disciplines, such as the new Ridley team and the Roodhooft squad, would be rewarded for their versatility. “We want to reward teams for letting riders race across different disciplines,” Van den Abeele said.
He went on to say that the UCI wants to encourage teams to diversify their rider rosters and support a more multidisciplinary approach to the sport. The shift would reward teams like Ineos, as well as teams like Ridley and the Roodhooft brothers’ squad, which are already active across disciplines like cyclocross, mountain biking, and track. He said that the reform could be implemented as early as 2026, aligning with the next WorldTour cycle. But it’s still in discussion. So maybe it will never (please) happen.
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