The outline of the 2027 Cycling World Championships was unveiled this Tuesday in Haute-Savoie. The UCI had already tested this "Super Worlds" format in 2023, in Glasgow, bringing together 13 disciplines: road and track cycling/paracycling, mountain biking (marathon, cross-country, downhill), BMX (racing, freestyle flatland, freestyle park, trial), indoor cycling, and Gran Fondo. The 2027 edition will be even more extensive with the addition of seven disciplines, including gravel and eSports, but also indoor speedway cycling and bike polo, which will experience the first UCI World Championships in their history. A unique event, therefore, that will highlight the best of the cycling world, in all its aspects, from August 24 to September 5, 2027.
Haute-Savoie… but also Yvelines
The events will be spread across twelve venues. Sallanches will host trial, a discipline that involves overcoming obstacles on a bicycle without putting a foot on the ground, but above all, road races. The course is sure to give superstar Tadej Pogacar ideas: the 13,3-kilometer circuit mapped out by the organizers includes the Côte de Domancy (2,5 km at 9,4%, maximum gradient at 16%), which was already on the race menu in 1980, when Bernard Hinault won the title on home soil. “It’s going to be a big cycling party”, says Le Blaireau, five-time winner of the Tour de France, who reconnoitered the route with several riders still active on Tuesday morning. The peloton will have to climb the famous hill twenty times, which promises a particularly demanding race of attrition and " a record number of spectators at the event " said the UCI.
Les Gets, the venue for the 2022 World Championships in this discipline, will host cross-country mountain biking and downhill. Further west, La Roche-sur-Foron, a stage town for the 2020 Tour de France, will be the hub for indoor cycling, speedway cycling, and bike polo. Road time trials and BMX racing will be based in Annecy, BMX freestyle in Cluses, para-cycling road racing in Rumilly, eSport cycling in Evian-les-Bains, gravel in Châtel, marathon and enduro mountain biking in the Grand Massif, pump track in Saint-Pierre-en-Faucigny, and finally, Gran Fondo in Thônes and La Clusaz. The final piece of the puzzle is that the track events will be relocated to the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, which is well-versed in major events, as evidenced by the 2022 World Championships and the 2024 Paris Games.
A billion viewers
The organization expects two million spectators on site and one billion television viewers over the 13 days of competition. Ten thousand athletes will compete for the 10.000 rainbow jerseys at stake. “These combined UCI Cycling World Championships were part of my vision when I was elected UCI President in 2017, recalls David Lappartient, who is seeking a new mandate this year. Following the resounding success of the inaugural UCI World Cycling Championships in Glasgow and Scotland in 2023, the second edition of this event will take our sport to a new level. Cycling will be celebrated in all its splendor in Haute-Savoie."
Martial Saddier, president of the Haute-Savoie departmental council, assured the commitment of all stakeholders to "to make this event a resounding success". “Our ambition is to make these UCI World Championships a benchmark in terms of inclusion, parity and innovation”, he announces, promising “a great popular festival, accessible to all and exemplary”.
