Amateurs chase the rainbow dream in Istočno, Sarajevo

Cycling is a party, and an extremely popular one. The recent 2021 UCI Road World Championships, bringing together the best Elite riders and rising youngsters in Flanders, gathered 1.4 million spectators, including 350,000 in the streets of Leuven witnessing Sunday’s grand finale with Julian Alaphilippe taking his second rainbow jersey in the Men Elite road race. Many more joined this festival of cycling in front of their screens, on social media, or by any means that would connect them to the exhilarating racing displayed on the occasion, and it’s impossible to put a number on the people who jumped on their bikes to pursue their own dreams.

Next week, in Istočno Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), it’s their time to shine with the 2021 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships (5-10 October). Hundreds and hundreds of participants from dozens of nations are heading to the south of Europe after qualifying through the different rounds of the 2020-2021 UCI Gran Fondo World Series, as well as riders who qualified in the early stages of the 2019-2020 season, before the planned subsequent events were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Qualifiers were held all around the world

From Australia to Canada, via Dubai, Morocco or France, amateur riders had 19 events in which to chase their ticket to Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the end of September, the Schleck Gran Fondo was the last opportunity to qualify. The event was sold out weeks ahead, with more than 2,000 riders attending the race in Mondorf-les-Bains (Luxembourg).

On each occasion, the top 25% of each category (Men and Women classified by age groups: 19-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74…) became eligible for the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships. The field is completed by wildcard riders: defending champions are qualified automatically; all UCI Gran Fondo World Series events get five wildcards per speciality organised - road race and individual time trial (ITT) - that they can use for riders who would normally have qualified but didn’t make it due to particular circumstances; all countries not hosting a qualifier event get ten wildcards (five males/five females) for their best riders; all countries can send their Masters National Champions (road race/ITT) without qualification; and the host nation can distribute an additional 20 wildcards.

As soon as there is one registered rider in a certain age group, the title will be awarded. And the winners will receive a specially-designed UCI World Champion’s rainbow jersey.

The participants are all amateurs. They hold a licence from their National Federation but, in the current year, they cannot have been part of a team registered with the UCI, have taken part in a UCI World Championships, the Olympic Games, Continental Games, Regional Games, the Commonwealth Games, or a UCI World Cup, nor have scored UCI points in any cycling discipline.

Uphill challenges in the Olympic mountains

Three official races await these amateur champions at the bottom of the mountains that welcomed the 1984 Olympic Winter Games. On Wednesday, the individual time trial will cover a 19.2km circuit around the city of Pale. On Saturday, women 50 years old and over and men 60 and over will ride the Medio Fondo with an altitude finish on the Jahorina mountain (1,590m). The Gran Fondo for the younger age categories will finish in the same place after a longer (135km) and more demanding race, with an extra ascent of Mount Trebević.

In between these races, the team relay is held on Thursday as part of the side events programme. Each team is composed of four riders with age and gender criteria. Each rider takes on three laps of a 2km city circuit.

The routes were already tested in August, with a round of the UCI Gran Fondo World Series. The Dutch rider Johnny Hoogerland (38 years old) was the fastest man in the ITT and also dominated the road race. Among the women, Luxembourg’s Claire Faber (20) won the ITT ahead of the Slovenian Laura Šimenc (31), who then claimed victory in the road race.

A couple of months later, there are rainbow jerseys up for grabs on the same roads!