UCI fires Gravel World Championships race organizer PP Sports, still without confirmation of new course or promoter

Gravel, UCI style. Photo: Kristof Ramon/©kramon

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With just six weeks until the second annual UCI Gravel World Championships, the event is without a race organizer or a course.

On Tuesday August 22, the Italian cycling media outlet Tuttobici reported that PP Sports, the company tasked with producing the first two years of the world championships event, saw its contract with the UCI revoked by the governing body and will no longer be tasked with organizing the 2023 event.

The event is still on the UCI calendar for October 7-8 in the Veneto region of Italy, however, the Tuttobici report indicated that site inspectors from the UCI were doing a course inspection in the Treviso area, in particular around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Prosecco Hills rather than a return to Vicenza and Cittadella, the site of last year’s race.

Velo reached out to Erwin Vervecken, the director of the UCI Gravel World Series, for comment. Vervecken said he was on the site visit on Tuesday and Wednesday but would not reveal where that site was.

“We’ll communicate the details in a UCI-coordinated press release very soon,” he said.

According to Tuttobici, Massimo Panighel, who has organized various national and international events including the 2011 and 2018 MTB Marathon World Championships, is rumored to be the new race organizer.

In an interview with news outlet Italy24 on Thursday, Panighel all but confirmed this to be true.

“On August 16 I was on vacation in Auronzo di Cadore. I get a phone call. It is the UCI that asks for my availability to organize the world championship. I accept by placing very clear conditions and guarantees on television coverage. The rest? It’s just talk,” Panighel told Italy24.

Although this is only the second UCI Gravel World Championships, it’s also the second time that the UCI has struggled in the lead up to the event.

Last year, the announcement of both the dates and location of the world championships were delayed, making it difficult for many potential participants to commit to the event. The route was not revealed until just three weeks before the event.

The route and race itself then caused multiple controversies. Unlike traditional gravel racing in the US, the UCI event featured a shorter course for women.

The course was also thought to misrepresent gravel racing; it featured less than 800 meters of elevation gain and included 25 percent tarmac. Most riders raced on road bikes.

Furthermore, participants found out just before the start line that call-ups would favor riders who had UCI points from their respective disciplines, which put American gravel racers near the back.

According to Panighel in the Italy24 interview, the UCI is seeking to address at least some of those issues, namely the difficulty of the course.

“The UCI has asked for a more demanding track than that of 2022,” he said. “The situation is constantly evolving even if the fulcrum will be Pieve di Soligo [a town in Treviso]. Course between 150 and 180km with 2,000 meters of difference in altitude for the Elite Men test. First section in all likelihood in line then three different circuits that will wind between the Prosecco hills and the foothills.”

Last year, Belgian road pro Gianni Vermeersch claimed the first elite men’s title, while French cross-country superstar Pauline Ferrand-Prevot won the women’s title in a hat trick of off-road world championship titles.