Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup: setting the tone for Paris

The three rounds of the 2024

The three rounds of the 2024 Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup in Adelaide, Hong Kong and Milton wrap up the qualifying period for the Olympic Games.

Some of the fastest track cyclists in the world are ready to storm velodromes around the globe for the 4th edition of the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup. Colombia ruled the series in 2021, before Italy (2022) and Great Britain (2023) powered to victory.

This year, the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup kicks off a packed calendar of international track events at the highest level, including the 2024 Paris Olympics Games in August, the Tissot UCI Track World Championships in Ballerup, Denmark, in October, followed by the UCI Track Champions League to round out the year.

Action across the board

The 2024 Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup kicks off in Australia (Adelaide, February 2-4) before heading to Hong Kong (China, March 15-17) then Canada (Milton, April 12-14) for the final round.

Each round of the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup spans three days, with the same programme of events for men and women: keirin, individual sprint, team sprint, Madison, omnium, team pursuit and elimination, i.e. the events of the Olympic programme, with the addition of the elimination race.

The first medals are awarded on the Friday with the finals of the eliminations, the team pursuits and the team sprints. After a full and intense weekend, racing draws to a close on Sunday evening with the finals of the men’s Madison, the men’s individual sprint, the women’s keirin and the women’s omnium (all four events: scratch, tempo race, elimination and points race).

A star-studded field

Dozens of riders are headed to the Adelaide Super-Drome, where they will represent 45 nations and seven UCI Track Teams. Among them, 17 riders who took gold on the track at the UCI Cycling World Championships: Ellesse Andrews, Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Megan Barker, Neah Evans, Emma Finucane, Lea Sophie Friedrich, Filippo Ganna, Aaron Gate, Pauline Grabosch, Emma Hinze, Josie Knight, Iúri Leitão, Anna Morris, Kevin Santiago Quintero Chavarro, William Tidball and Jennifer Valente.

Australian stars such as Matthew Richardson are also ready to fly on the track alongside their compatriots Sam Welsford and Ally Wollaston, who shone in the sprints on the road at the Santos Tour Down Under.

The Australian openers of the 2024 UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour combine perfectly with the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup in Adelaide, as the likes of Joshua Tarling, Elia Viviani, Alexandra Manly and Georgia Baker also illustrate. The latter two are also expected in the Oceania Track Championships, held in Cambridge (New Zealand) 10 days after the first round of the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup.

Olympics on the horizon

The last battles of the 2024 Tissot Nations Cup in Milton on 14 April will also mark the end of the qualification process for Paris 2024, with quotas for National Olympic Committees based on the points scored by their athletes since 9 July 2022. Almost 200 riders will vie for Olympic glory in the Vélodrome national in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

Among them, Italian star Filippo Ganna (who holds the men's Tissot UCI Hour Record timed by Tissot) is among those who need to balance track ambitions with an intense programme on the road. "Gold and gold, that is the dream", the Italian powerhouse recently said when asked about his ambitions for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Ganna will focus on the road individual time trial and the track team pursuit, in which he is the reigning Olympic Champion with his compatriots Simone Consonni, Francesco Lamon and Jonathan Milan. In Adelaide, he will be partnering again with Lamon, with the two Olympic Champions joined by Manlio Moro and Davide Boscaro.

Refinements are being made in every team, with dreams of Olympic glory. But the first important battles are coming up in the 2024 Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup.