Greater than 120 riders, together with your entire high 30, and greater than a dozen groups have connected their names to a press release decrying the transfer to scale back the UCI Mountain Bike World Collection Cross-Nation Olympic (XCO) podiums from 5 riders to 3.
The five-rider podium been a long-standing anomaly on the World Cup races, relationship again to 1994 when the delight and amazement brought on by a then 17-year-old junior mountain-biker, Cadel Evans, rocketing into the highest 5 of the elite race on the World Cup in Cairns noticed organisers add one other two positions. It then grew to become a convention.
“A podium distinctive to mountain bike, it has offered numerous riders and groups with extra publicity and alternatives. It has been the breakthrough for a lot of athletes and given life to smaller groups,” mentioned a rider assertion shared by UCI mountain bike rider consultant Rebecca Henderson, with the names connected together with 2024 Olympic champions Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, World Champions Puck and Alan Hatherly in addition to nine-time World Cup total winner and 10-time World Champion Nino Schurter.
“Chasing a podium in our sport on the highest degree has all the time meant a High 5. It has added worth and depth to the game, given riders extra probability to shine within the highlight and added worth to riders, groups and all the sponsors and types behind us who’re the spine {of professional} mountain bike racing.”
Groups are already below vital strain, with prices rising and the rising problem of discovering sufficient sponsorship already demonstrated by a discount within the variety of UCI-registered mountain bike groups by greater than a 3rd this season.
Up till now, the additional alternative for sponsorship and rider publicity offered by the five-rider elite XCO podium is part of the game that has survived many adjustments and was written into the UCI rules. Nonetheless, the game governing physique and Warner Bros. Discovery – which the UCI partnered with to broadcast, promote and commercialise the game from 2023 to 2030 – introduced amendments late final 12 months that may come into play from 2025.
Amongst these amendments was {that a} purple line was drawn by means of the 5 riders that merchandise 4.10.007 had declared had been required to attend the official post-XCO race ceremony XCO and it was as a substitute changed with a 3 as a substitute. The identical was the case for the elite downhill podium.
“Warner Brothers Discovery have just one cause for decreasing the rostrum to 3 riders, conformity,” reads the assertion. Whereas Warner Brothers Discovery is the important thing occasion promotor, the UCI Administration Committee confirmed the choice.
The rider assertion levelled criticism on the choice as with none actual rationale past consistency throughout completely different race sorts. “To evolve to the norm, to the opposite sports activities. A choice that has been made regardless of sturdy pushback from the athletes who’re the very coronary heart of the game. Now we have been ignored and are left with out a voice as the way forward for our sport adjustments.
“As our followers know, mountain biking has by no means been about conformity, we have now carved our personal path because the inception of World Cup racing within the 1990’s and we wish to hold our distinctive character. The overwhelming majority of groups and riders really feel fully unheard on this subject.”
“That is our sport and we received’t let conformity strip away its character! We demand the 5 rider podium in 2025!”
“So insignificant for them however so significant for us”
The transfer away from a 5 rider podium is certainly one of many adjustments in biking that Warner Bros. Discovery has been concerned in lately, from the value implications of the mixing of Eurosport into its TNT Sports activities Community within the UK and Eire to the axing of the UCI Observe Champions League, with monitor being one other biking self-discipline the place Warner Bros. Discovery is in partnership with the UCI.
Whereas to some, on the face of it, the rostrum change might not appear to be an enormous deal, the UCI MTB riders consultant, Rebecca Henderson, was fast to ship a protracted checklist of the reason why it was necessary to maintain the follow in place, from the historical past of the game and its character to the publicity for sponsors.
“I got here from a crew the place numerous my fourth and fifth locations are what stored it alive,” Henderson informed Cyclingnews. “Being on the rostrum is sufficient for the smaller groups.”
“For certain the massive ones are going to wish to win however not each crew has finances to purchase high riders and so they must develop them so whenever you break by means of for a fifth or a fourth, that is big and its big publicity for us as athletes. That publicity is is so necessary after which there may be clearly the historical past.”
What’s extra, whereas riders can clearly see the negatives of the transfer, Henderson mentioned it is a battle to see the advantages.
“The flip facet is, why? We have by no means been introduced with a very good cause why. The one factor they’ve given us is as a result of that is what the opposite sports activities do, and we wish to be extra according to the opposite sports activities. They’re taking away one thing that’s so useful for us,” the highest 10 rider and winner of 12 consecutive elite Australian XCO titles informed Cyclingnews.
“We perceive that they wish to get the podiums finished rapidly, nevertheless it’s an additional 30 seconds of your time to place two extra riders up there. It is so insignificant for them however so significant for us.”
It is not the primary transfer to drop the rostrum dimension to a extra conventional three, with the shift in actual fact initially mooted for 2024 nevertheless it was delayed following opposition to the transfer. The opposition hasn’t gone away, with Henderson outlining that the athlete concern over the transfer continued to be expressed by means of the formal course of however as issues presently stand the elite XCO World Cup on Sunday on the first spherical in Brazil is ready to spell the tip of the period of 5 rider podiums.
“It’s vital,” mentioned Henderson, to alter course earlier than then.
“As soon as it is gone I am unsure how we will get it again.”
