In a normal season, cycling would have started within the Tour Down Under in Australia fortnight ago, it might have continued with Argentina San Juan Vuelta and therefore the Mallorca Challenge tests, the Vuelta a Valencian Community would have started today and everything would already be ready for the tours of Andalusia, Algarve and Colombia, the foremost media events of this first phase of the course. This year, however, none of the seven mentioned races are going to be held, not a minimum of on their usual dates. Neither Murcia, Oman, Saudi Arabia , Langkawi, Antalya.
Except for the French calendar and a few rare exceptions -for now- like the Almeria Classic, all top-level cycling has been canceled in these first two months of the year. Mobility through regular flights or trains, the restrictions of the various national or regional authorities and therefore the impossibility of guaranteeing that the tests are administered without an audience are leaving a decent schedule one month before the primary big appointments of the season: Strade Bianche, Paris-Nice, Tyrrhenian-Adriatic and Milan-San Remo.
Some organizers are still confident they will save their 2021 edition, but the gaps within the calendar are few. Mallorca, Valencia, Andalusia and Algarve shall relocate in May and therefore the president of the UCI, David Lappartient, has already warned that there’ll not be space for all. We would find yourself with weeks during which there are five or six races. We are expecting the month of March to ascertain which races are really canceled then choose a reorganization of the calendar , has warned the highest leader of world cycling. May is additionally a month during which the Giro is disputed and during which many teams do concentrations tall for the Tour. In other words, there’ll be almost no top-level riders to shine secondary races.
The rain of cancellations is causing many teams and riders to reorganize their preparation, leading to low-profile races – like the Estrella de Besseges that started this Wednesday – bringing together many leaders of the peloton who in normal conditions wouldn’t attend they. during this way, the best damage is being for the UCI ProTour teams, those of the second division. the highest teams are requesting more invitations to travel to tests that they didn’t usually attend in other seasons which limits the access of the standard squads.
Teams like the Spanish Caja Rural, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Kern Pharma and Burgos BH have seen their calendar greatly reduced. apart from Kern Pharma, all of them will close February with a complete of two days of competition, an untenable situation. For these teams, the Spanish tests at the start of the season are a crucial showcase that in 2021 they were unable to require advantage of and that they already come from a year during which the Basque Country, Catalonia, San Sebastian , Castilla y Leon, Asturias, Estella and Madrid were suspended, which has already announced its resignation to carry the 2021 edition in May. the results for cycling are they’re going to see within the medium-long term, but, like almost everything during this pandemic, the longer term doesn’t look too good.
