Why are the Road World Championships heading to India in 2032? Cycling history, Olympic ambitions, and UCI globalisation

India has never had a professional cyclist or a professional team. India has only organised a handful of UCI races in its history and cycling is far down on the list of the nation’s most popular sports. So why has cycling’s world governing body decided to host the 2032 Road World Championships in India?

Pune, the second largest city in the state of Maharashtra, defeated the regions of Gronigen and Drenthe in the Netherlands in its bid to host the Worlds in six year’s time.

It will become just the fourth Asian city to hold the UCI’s biggest event in a century after Utsonimiya in 1990, Doha in 2016 and Abu Dhabi in 2028.

So how did the UCI get to the point of awarding the 2032 Road World Championships to Pune, and what might be the governing body’s rationale for choosing India over the Netherlands on this occasion?

Cycling in India

The story of India’s relationship with professional cycling is a short read. And yet, the sport is seeing a dramatic and expansive growth in this nation for which sport is an obsession.

Cycling has been present within Indian sport for decades, with its national federation being established in 1946. Indian cyclists took part in the Olympic Games for the first time two years later, at the 1948 London Games.

Fast forward to the 21st century and cycling hadn’t progressed in India meaningfully in the intervening decades. The Cycling Federation of India made a first attempt at hosting UCI races in the early 2010s, with well-funded one-day events in Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur won by the likes of Elia Viviani and Robbie Hunter. As funding and public-interest faded, these races disappeared after 2013.

However, the sparks were beginning to ignite for cycling in India over the following years. Naveen John became India’s first rider to race for a UCI continental team in 2016, before India’s first gold medal at the junior track world championships in 2019 came through a talented team sprint squad.

This year, however, everything changed. The Cycling Federation of India, working with the government of Maharashtra, put on India’s first UCI stage race. The Bajaj Pune Grand Tour took place in January, and over the five stages an estimated 2.5 million people lined the roadside to watch, as Kiwi Luke Mudgway of Chinese team Li-Ning Star became the race’s first winner.

In attendance for the final stage around the streets of Pune was the UCI’s Director General Amina Lanaya. Speaking to local reporters afterwards, Lanaya was clearly impressed by what she had seen, immediately speaking of a potential future UCI World Championships.

"Asia is capable and has proven that it can do even more and even better,”"Lanaya said according to the India Times. "So it will also be, maybe, an opportunity to host world championships in India in the years to come, and that should be part of the roadmap that we have to put together with all the parties involved."

Organisers have already confirmed that the Pune Grand Tour will be upgraded to 2.1 status in 2027 and extended to six stages, with each day also longer than the 2026 edition. Work is said to be under way to build 413km of new roads, with other stretches being redeveloped ahead of next year’s race at a cost of ₹627 crore - more than £49 million. The ambition now is to build the Pune Grand Tour into one of the world’s biggest races over the coming years, with plans already in place to see the race rise to ProSeries level from 2028.

India is also beginning to invest more in its own cycling talent. Teenager Harshita Jakhar has taken part in a UCI World Cycling Centre initiative in Brittany, France, over the past two seasons, while other riders are also getting chances to compete in higher-level events. There is particular emphasis on India’s track programme, with former world champion Kévin Sireau in place as the national sprint coach until recently.

The Cycling Federation of India also proposed to create a new event earlier this year, the Indian Cycling League, which would create ten franchise teams from across the country to compete in a series of races, bringing in international talent. However, it appears that this initiative has stalled in the wake of India’s World Championships bid.

Weeks after the inaugural Pune Grand Tour, talks between the UCI and the Cycling Federation of India led to the initial plans for Pune to put in a hastily formed World Championships bid. The UCI, with its mission to globalise professional cycling, saw this as an unmissable opportunity.

In early September, a UCI delegation, including its Sports Director Peter Van den Abeele, travelled to Pune to recon the possible 2032 World Championships course around Maharashtra, just a few weeks ahead of the event’s announcement at the UCI Congress in Montreal.

Olympic ambitions

To understand why India has been so enthusiastic in its road cycling investment, a broader perspective on the government's sporting plans is required.

The Indian city of Ahmedabad is one of the favourites to host the 2036 Olympic Games. With cycling a core Olympic sport, having been part of every edition since the inaugural 1896 Athens Games, running a major international cycling event could be critical to Ahmedabad’s hopes. The largest city in Gujarat, which is the home state of Prime Minister Nerandra Modi, will also host the 2030 Commonwealth Games and has bid for the 2038 Asian Games.

The staging of the Pune Grand Tour was a key step in showing to the world what India is capable of, according to Indian Cycling Federation Secretary General Maninder Pal Singh.

"The Pune Grand Tour has changed how we view cycling in this country," Pal Singh said at the NL-EU-India Urban Mobility Conference in Mumbai in April. "Pune was not just for professional cycling. It was also to show the world what our country is capable of when it comes to the organisation and broadcasting of sporting events."

Pal Singh went on to reveal plans for major investment in the sport across several disciplines; including building new facilities and stadiums and investing in talent identification. Pal Singh would like to see what has happened in Pune replicated in other states, not just from a sporting perspective, but also in building cycling infrastructure. At that time, Pal Singh said that the Federation’s aim was to host the Worlds before 2036.

The UCI’s globalisation mission

From the UCI’s perspective, it could come across as a risk to award its biggest annual event to a nation with so little experience in running bike races. Rwanda may have appeared to have been an equally risky choice, but the East African nation had hosted the Tour du Rwanda for 16 years ahead of organising the World Championships in 2025.

However, the UCI is aiming to internationalise professional cycling, expanding into markets beyond its traditional Western European base – as stated in its 2030 Agenda, a document which is guiding the current direction of the governance of the sport.

That’s part of the reason why the UCI already awarded World Championships to Rwanda in 2025, the UAE in 2028 and is currently considering a Japanese bid for the 2035 'Super Worlds', in which 20 cycling disciplines come together for one World Championships.

With that in mind, it’s unsurprising that the UCI jumped at the opportunity to accept India’s bid over the Dutch bid, which would have been the fourth consecutive European host.

As the years go on, don’t be surprised to see more World Championships taking place away from Europe, as the UCI seeks to expand and diversify the appeal of professional cycling.

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