The opening round of the 2024-25 UCI Cyclocross World Cup arrives this Sunday in Antwerp, with world champion Fem van Empel and European champion Thibau Nys among the big stars set to take the start.
The biggest names on the men's side, current world champion Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tim Pidcock, won't be present at the start in Belgium as they continue to race heavily reduced 'cross calendars before the road season starts.
It's the first round of a reduced World Cup calendar, down from 14 races to 12 and without a USA round for the first time since 2015 when the Las Vegas race brought the World Cup outside of Europe for the first time.
It's also a much later start to the headline cyclocross series which had kicked off in October for the past few years and September prior to 2019 when it was reformed and expanded.
The changes make up part of the UCI's attempt to make the World Cups more attractive for riders after drama unfolded last season when some opted to skip non-Belgian or Dutch rounds in favour of Superprestige or X2O Trofee series races close to the sport's heartland.
That saga started when Nys sparked a response from UCI President David Lappartient in conversation with DirectVelo, after the Belgian skipped the World Cup in Dendermonde on Sunday, November 12, citing tiredness, despite taking part in the Superprestige race in Niel the day prior.
"If a rider prefers to ride a national event during World Cup rounds, you won't ride the following World Cup rounds and therefore you won't ride the World Championships," said Lappartient.
"The World Cup is not a competition in which you can pick and choose as you please. Every rider has to play the game."
This prompted a further response from riders and team managers with the main complaints being that the World Cup's current format is too large and not fit for purpose in line with the rest of the calendar. Teams are forced to pick and choose, often opting for the easier-to-attend races in Belgium over the rounds of the World Cup in the USA, Ireland and Spain, due to cost.
With the reshuffled series about to start, the UCI have pulled back slightly from Lappartient's threat, however, they won't be afraid to penalise riders should the new format not alleviate their issue with rounds being skipped.
“If we see that the trend continues and that rule is being played with, then we can play it even harder and see if we can take even tougher measures," said UCI sports director Peter Van den Abeele to Het Nieuwsblad.
"But in all honesty: I don't think that will be necessary. I think that the puzzle that now lies ahead is one that everyone can agree on. I really don't understand that as a full-time cyclo-cross rider, you wouldn't ride everything. I find that very difficult to accept.
"We do indeed want to involve the riders more in the UCI World Cup and encourage them to take part in the rounds."
To help stop riders from skipping races, certain rounds of the World Cup will also have "protected event" status from the UCI, to "promote balanced participation in the events on the UCI Cyclo-cross International Calendar" as the discipline attempts to widen its areas of participation.
World Cups in Dublin, Hulst, Besançon and the new round in Cabras will see the new "protected event" status implemented, which allows the "UCI to refuse registration on the UCI International Calendar of a race that wishes to take place the day before or on the day of" the rounds mentioned.
"To be clear: we don’t want to wipe out other races, mind you. But you have to understand: it's a shame when you go to new areas and then you have to disappoint those people because there are few or no top riders at the start," continued Van den Abeele.
"Nobody benefits from that and certainly not the discipline itself. In Belgium, everything is going well and nobody has a problem with that, but we have to find the right balance between the offer in and around Belgium and outside. And now there is also a clear hierarchy between the different classifications."
