Almost exactly two months after confirming that the new Tour de Hangzhou had been awarded a four-year WorldTour licence in its first year of existence, the UCI has today announced that the race will not go ahead this season.
The race is organised by the UCI’s private for-profit offshoot company, Global Cycling Promotions, and joined another Chinese race, The Tour of Beijing, on the top step of the calendar.
The UCI said today that the race will not now be held until 2013. It said that it, GCP, the Chinese Cycling Association, the Chinese Sports Ministry and the city of Hangzhou all agreed to the step after analysing the situation.
“We put in a lot of work to stage the first edition of the event in 2012, but we needed a little more time to fine-tune certain internal matters in China,” said GCP Director Mr Alain Rumpf in a UCI statement. “In choosing to delay the first edition, we can ensure that the event will meet the expectations of all our partners, as was the case last year with the Tour of Beijing.”
The UCI said today that not all the conditions had been met to guarantee the necessary quality.
When the UCI ProTour was originally introduced, the expectation would be that races would have to be established and to prove their worth prior to World Tour licences being handed out.
However GCP’s Tour of Beijing was given top status last year prior to its first edition.
UCI President Pat McQuaid said that the race would remain, “a very important element in the UCI’s strategy for the development of cycling, and the decision to postpone the organisation of this event will have no negative consequences on the project.”