In a normal season, cycling would have started in the Tour Down Under in Australia two weeks ago, it would have continued with the Argentine San Juan Vuelta and the Mallorca Challenge tests, the Vuelta a Valencian Community would have started today and everything would already be ready for the tours of Andalusia, Algarve and Colombia, the most media events of this initial phase of the course.

This year, however, none of the seven races mentioned will be held, not at least on their usual dates.

Neither Murcia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Langkawi, Antalya ...

Except for the French calendar and some rare exception -for the moment- such as the

Almería Classic

, all top-level cycling has been canceled in these first two months of the year.

Mobility through regular flights or trains, the restrictions of the different national or regional authorities and the impossibility of guaranteeing that the tests are carried out without an audience are leaving a tight schedule one month before the first big appointments of the season: Strade Bianche, Paris-Nice, Tyrrhenian-Adriatic and Milan-San Remo.

Some organizers are still confident they can save their 2021 edition, but the gaps in the calendar are scarce.

Mallorca, Valencia, Andalusia and the Algarve intend to relocate in May and the president of the UCI, David Lappartient, has already warned that there will not be space for all.

"We would end up with weeks in which there are five or six races.

We are waiting for the month of March to see which races are really canceled and then decide on a reorganization of the calendar

”, has warned the top leader of world cycling.

May is also a month in which the Giro is disputed and in which many teams do concentrations in height for the Tour.

In other words, there will be almost no top-level riders to polish secondary races.

Reorganization

The rain of cancellations is causing many teams and riders to reorganize their preparation, resulting in low-profile races - such as the Estrella de Bessèges that started this Wednesday - bringing together many leaders of the peloton who in normal conditions would not attend they.

In this way, the greatest damage is being for the UCI ProTour teams, those of the second division.

The top teams are requesting more invitations to go to tests that they did not usually go to in other seasons and that limits the access of the humble squads

.

Teams such as the Spanish Caja Rural, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Kern Pharma and Burgos BH have seen their calendar greatly reduced.

Except for Kern Pharma, all will close February with a total of two days of competition, an untenable situation.

For these teams, the Spanish tests at the beginning of the season are an important showcase that in 2021 they have not been able to take advantage of.

And they already come from a year in which the Basque Country, Catalonia, San Sebastián, Castilla y León, Asturias, Estella and Madrid were suspended, which has already announced its resignation to hold the 2021 edition in May. The consequences for cycling are They will see in the medium-long term, but, as with almost everything during this pandemic, the future does not look too good.

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See links of interest

  • 2021 business calendar

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  • Granada - Barcelona, ​​live