This year's World Cup Series wasn't kind to the UCI. It rained for a week leading up to the St. Wendel, Germany opener. Then the four cross racers refused to ride the lousy course at the Alpe d'Huez stop, a poor venue that was picked simply to put it in the neighborhood of the centennial edition of the Tour de France. Next, GaleForce pulled the plug on Tulluride, Colorado. Then there was the series final at Kaprun, Austria: disastrous weather, inadequate preparation and the cancellation of the 4X.
WHAT'S IN STORE FOR '04
The World Cup Series has been given a complete makeover for next year. Only Fort William and Mont-Ste-Anne are the return events. Everything else is new from start to finish, including the addition of one more cross-country race. Now the World Cup Series will comprise of seven XC and six DH/4X events.
NO U.S. STOP
At first the talk was that the American World Cup would stay in Colorado, but instead it would be moved to Snowmass. When Snowmass couldn't come up with the $225,000 it took to put the event on, the UCI all but guaranteed the World Cup to the outstanding Angel Fire Resort in northern New Mexico. Now we've just learned that the UCI won't even include a U.S. stop in the 2004 World Cup Series.
HAS EUROPE BOYCOTTED THE STATES?
Unless we can come up with some good money for the 2004 National Championship Series, we're going to see very few Europeans racing in America next year. Without good money the NCS events will be lowly ranked and will do little to improve a rider's UCI standings. There really is no reason then why a team would divert talent from the World Cup Series to race in this country.
In the end we can surmise that the injury NORBA and GaleForce inflicted on American mountain bike racing will still take some time to heal. But let's move past all that. The bottom line is that whether the racing is in Europe only and in America only, it's still MTB racing and that makes it cool in our books.
2004 UCI MTB SCHEDULE
May 22-23: Madrid, Spain...XC 1
May 29-30: Houffalize, Belgium...XC 2
June 5-6: Fort William, Great Britain...XC 3; DH/4X 1
June 12-13: Sestiere, Italy...DH/4X 2
June 19-20: Schladming, Austria...XC 4; DH/4X 3
June 26-27: Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada...XC 5; DH/4X 4
July 3-4: Calgary, Canada...XC 6; DH/4X 5
September 7-12: MTB World Championship...Les Gets, France
September 18-19: Livigno, Italy...XC 7; DH/4X 6;
|