'We were really impressed by the level of the organization' - UCI awards 2032 Road World Championships to Pune, India

The UCI has awarded the first Road World Championships to the world's most populous country, handing the 2032 event to India.

Pune, southwest of Mumbai, put in a late bid to host the 2032 Road Worlds, missing the December 31 deadline, and were in competition with Groningen and the Drenthe region of the Netherlands.

But UCI President David Lappartient was so impressed with India's proposal that he and the Management Committee decided to take the unusual step to award the 2034 championships to Groningen/Drenthe well ahead of the deadline for applications.

"We had two very, very solid bids between India and the Netherlands. And we started the discussion with both," Lappartient said.

"We had a discussion, and because we didn't want to lose one of the two candidates. When you have two very strong candidates like this, you say, 'Look, we need to award the two.'

"I entered into a discussion also with my UCI Management Committee. And my colleagues were fully behind my proposal to award two editions. That was not initially the plan, but when you have two very solid bids, we want to have two winners, and not one to win and one to lose, because two winners means that cycling will win."

Lappartient explained that they chose 2034 and not 2033 because they already had a bid for the latter and also, Groningen is bidding for a large non-cycling related event for 2033.

Unlike Rwanda, which had a long history of hosting UCI events, India has not held very many high-level road events.

Pune hosted India's first-ever UCI stage race this year, the 2.2-ranked Bajaj Pune Grand Tour in the state of Maharashtra from January 19 to 23.

Maninder Pal Singh, the secretary general of the Cycling Federation of India (CFI), told The Athletic that their bid for Worlds took shape earlier in the summer after the race was held.

"Three months ago, probably nobody believed that we could host an event of the stature of the UCI Road World Championships, but I think it's going to be the biggest, grandest World Championships if we get it, which I believe we will," Singh said, adding that there are plans to bring the region "the world's fourth Grand Tour… I'm not talking about an event like the Tour de France - I want it to be bigger than the Tour de France".

Lappartient had no qualms with awarding the most prestigious event in road cycling to a country with little experience hosting such high-level cycling competitions after seeing the January race in Pune.

"First of all, we were really impressed by the level of the organization for the first year," Lappartient said to Cyclingnews. "We are sure that it's also a journey over the next six years, and they will for sure continue to increase.

"Maybe they will move [the race] from category 2.2 to 2.1 in the future, or ProSeries - it's up to them to decide if they want to bid. And also, we have experts in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East that can also help them to continue to improve their level.

"But from what I saw this year for the first edition, I'm not specifically worried, also because the public authorities are really invested in the bid. And that's something that can secure really the power to deliver a wonderful event."

The UCI Road World Championships have historically been the domain of Western Europe, but Canada held the first event outside Europe in 1974. The USA held the event in Colorado Springs in 1986.

Utsunomiya, Japan hosted the race in 1990, but Asia wouldn't get another chance until Road Worlds were held Doha, Qatar in 2016, where the sprinters got a rare opportunity.

Rwanda became the first African nation to host this prestigious event in 2025, with a highly-selective course in Kigali.

Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates have already been awarded the 2028 Road Worlds, making India the fourth held on the Asian continent.

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