Less than 12 months from the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, British cycling’s good health was evident across the UCI Cycling World Championships, which ended in Glasgow on Sunday afternoon.
From Tom Pidcock’s gold medal in the men’s Olympic mountain biking event, to Elinor Barker and Neah Evans’s world title in the women’s madison, Josh Tarling’s bronze in the men’s time trial and Beth Shriever’s gold in the BMX supercross, there were stellar performances across the multidisciplined event from rapidly maturing talents.
British athletes claimed 100 medals in the world championships, including 34 world titles, across the road, para-road, track, para-track, BMX racing, BMX freestyle park, mountain bike cross-country and downhill disciplines.
Glasgow, depicted by traditionalists as an inappropriate location for the 10 days of frenzied competition in the first “super-worlds”, in fact rose to the occasion with the steep slope of Montrose Street, or the “Mur de Montrose”, and the dramatic setting of Glentress Forest becoming focal points.
However, in a packed schedule of events there were also logistical issues, as British Cycling’s performance director, Stephen Park, acknowledged. “When we arrived here we were a little bit apprehensive.” Park said. “Thirteen world championships, all together – organisationally, practically, it’s been really difficult.
“We obviously have a huge team of people, 20 mechanics on site, doing the different disciplines. We’ve had over 200 athletes here, just in the elite category, so a lot of people to manage, but in terms of an event, in terms of a spectacle, in terms of a social movement, a programme for cycling, I think it’s been fantastic.”
Cycling’s “mini-Olympics” were the brainchild of the UCI president, David Lappartient, and, coming only a few days after the men’s and women’s Tour de France ended, also gave impetus to the British bid to host a Grand Départ of the French race in the next two to three years.
The presence of the Tour de France director, Christian Prudhomme, at the men’s road race on the first weekend, fuelled further speculation. “Why wouldn’t event organisers want to bring events to the UK on the back of everything we’ve seen?” Jon Dutton, chief executive of British Cycling, said on Sunday.
“We’ve managed to engage different audiences beyond the core cycling community, which I think is really attractive to race organisers, whether that be the Tour de France or future world championships.”
Dutton, a key player in the last British Grand Départ in Yorkshire in 2014, said the Tour promoter ASO has “huge respect for our ability to deliver major races”. He said: “The Tour is the biggest commercial road race in cycling so it would be great to bring that back and I think any event organiser looking at this event would certainly want to come back to the UK.”
There were other thorny issues, away from the racing, that felt swept under the carpet. Environmental activists disrupted the men’s road race, voicing concerns over cycling sponsorships from companies such as Shell, sponsors of British Cycling.
“Our partnership with Shell is around sustainability,” Park said. “The work we are doing with them is very heavily in that space and we also know that the people who can make the biggest impact on the use of fossil fuels are those oil companies.
“We recognise that it’s a long journey to travel, but we think we are far better inside having that conversation with them, than just standing back waiting for change to happen.”
Mental health and burnout, key issues as the cycling year grows even more intense, particularly in the women’s peloton, characterised the slow-burn dismantling of Katie Archibald’s resolve in the velodrome and Marlen Reusser’s sudden decision to stop halfway through the women’s time trial.
“I cry all the time,” said a tearful Archibald, who also described competing in the velodrome as being “trotted out for slaughter”. Those comments found an echo in Reusser’s words: “I need a break, I am not a machine,” the Swiss rider said.
Diversity was a buzzword but, para-cycling aside, on the ground it was lacking, with more black faces working in event security than competing in the championships. Pippa York, Scotland’s most famous professional cyclist and one of the most high-profile of transgender former athletes, was kept at arms length throughout and even experienced the indignity of being dead-named in event content and TV streams by the UCI.
“We’ve engaged with Pippa,” Dutton said. “The work we did on transgender and non-binary was part of our conversation, but that particular issue is probably best addressed to the UCI. I’ve reached out to Pippa and would love to carry on that conversation in the future.”
Trudy Lindblade, chief executive of the championships, said York had been part of the organiser’s sport advisory group. “We wanted to make sure we had a really diverse view in that group. Pippa was part of that for two years, but did choose to resign earlier this year, but she played a really important role.”
Ultimately though this was the UCI president Lappartient’s grand vision, of a multidisciplinary, multi-location cycling Olympics. With a year to go until the Paris Games, the Frenchman’s star continues to rise, whether he is sweeping up to Stirling Castle with Prince Albert of Monaco in a high-security motorcade, or taking a stand-in role as president of France’s Olympic committee.
