As the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal, Canada prepare to reach their crescendo with the elite women's and men's road races, the organisers of the next Worlds presented a hugely ambitious project for a combined championships bigger than any in history.
Bringing together all of the UCI's disciplines except for cyclo-cross and snow bike, the Haute Savoie combined UCI World Championships will include 20 disciplines from BMX to Trials - bringing in the Gravel World Championships for the first time - and gather some 15,000 athletes from 207 nations to compete for 288 titles.
The road races will take place in Sallanches, the site of the 1964 Road World Championships where Eddy Merckx won his first title as an amateur at age 19, and where Bernard Hinault won his world title in 1980. Each race will take place fully on a 13.3km circuit that includes 185m of climbing on the Côte de Domancy, a 2.5 km climb that has an average gradient of 9.4%.
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There will be no lengthy run-out for the elite riders, just 20 laps of the circuit for an incredibly demanding 265 kilometres with 5,700 metres of climbing for elite men, 12 laps/158.6km and 3,420 metres for elite women and under-23 men, 9 laps for under-23 women and junior men and six laps for junior women.
Even the time trials will have a climb. The elite and under-23 time trials are 37.2km with a start and finish in Annecy, encircling Lac d'Annecy and climbing over the Côte de Talloires - a 1.5km climb at 6.5% average - for a total of 265 metres of climbing, while juniors begin in Doussard at the south end of the lake for 20.3km and 202 metres of climbing. In the mixed relay, the men will cover the flat first 16.9km while the women will tackle the climb and 20.3km, making for some interesting tactical decisions.
But the championships will be much, much bigger than just road cycling, with three BMX events, Indoor Cycling, Esports, Cycle Speedway (think short-track speed skating on bikes), Gran Fondo, Gravel, five Mountain Bike events (Cross-country, Marathon, Downhill, Enduro and E-Enduro), bike Polo, Pump Track, Para-cycling Road, Track (Junior, Elite, Para) and Trials.
The combined event is the brainchild of David Lappartient, who said he originally had the idea to combine the five Olympic disciplines every four years while campaigning to become UCI President. During Friday's presentation of the 2027 Worlds, he explained, "Once [I was] elected ... we said to ourselves: 'Why limit ourselves to five? Why not include our various competitions of the year?'"
The journey led to the 2023 Glasgow World Championships with 13 disciplines and, after a chance meeting while on holiday in Châtel that led to Lappartient presenting the awards of a Gran Fondo, he met the president of the province, Martial Saddier.
"That was the first meeting," Lappartient recalled. "And he said, 'I have a dream. I want to bring back the UCI Road World Championship in Sallanches, where Bernard Hinault won. When can it be?'. I said, 'Look, 2025 is in Africa, 2026 could probably be Montreal - here we are - and in 2027, we set up the combined World Championships, but 2028 is free."
"But he said, 'Yes, but we are elected until March 2028 ... Why not 2027, the combined?' [I said], 'It's all the disciplines, you know, it will be like 20 UCI World Championships together.' And he said, "OK, done. I'll take that."
The agreement held and one year from now, the 'Cycling Games' will be spread across the province, with Les Gets, a long-time MTB World Cup host, hosting the mountain bike cross-country and downhill. Only track cycling will be outside Haute Savoie. Rather than use the nearby Grenoble velodrome, track cycling events will be held in the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome outside of Paris.
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