Züri Metzgete officially cancelled

UCI President Pat McQuaid has confirmed that there will be no replacement race for the Züri Metzgete this year, but the UCI is hopeful of finding a new organizer to hold the race in 2008.

The original race organizer gave up in April when he announced that he had no sponsor for the race, and all further attempts to hold the race have failed, according to the Swiss press agency, Sportinformation.

The UCI had offered to back a loan to enable the race but it was not possible to establish a race course with adequate facilities at the start and finish in such a quick time.

The last offer was from the city of Lugano to hold the race in Tessin in conjunction with the VC Lugano, who's president is Elio Calcagni. They even had 700,000 Swiss Francs ready. However, the originally friendly reception of Lugano's candidacy by the UCI was "weakened by political squabbles."

The race was first held in 1914 and it had taken place every year since 1917.