Paris (AFP)

The International Cycling Union (UCI), faced with the epidemic of new coronavirus, asked Sunday the organizers the cancellation of the races in the "territories identified at risk by the World Health Organization", freezing the world rankings at less until April 3.

"The safety of athletes being a priority of the UCI missions, all organizers are expressly asked to cancel any cycling event on the UCI international calendar in territories identified at risk by the World Health Organization", announces the governing body of world cycling that has taken a series of measures in response to the Covid-19 epidemic.

The international federation refers to the WHO dashboard listing the confirmed cases by country without specifying what the "at risk" territories are.

Faced with cascading cancellations or postponements of competition, the UCI also freezes the points in the world rankings, "all disciplines combined, from March 15, 2020 and until further notice but at least until April 3, 2020" .

On road, most of the races over the period have already been postponed by the organizers, such as Milan-Sanremo and the Giro in Italy, Gand-Wevelgem in Belgium and the Tour of Catalonia in Spain, for the most emblematic. Often at the discretion of health measures ordered by local governments.

The UCI announces that it will communicate later the "possible reassignment of new dates", according to the "possibilities offered by the international calendar" but "without any guarantee".

Finally, the qualification procedure for the Tokyo Olympic Games is still in progress for mountain biking, BMX (bicross), BMX Freestyle and para-cycling, the international federation asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Paralympic (IPC) " to stop the qualification period retroactively to March 3, 2020 "to ensure" sports equity "in these disciplines where the qualification period extended for some until June.

© 2020 AFP