The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is delighted to today unveil the calendar for the 2019/2020 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup. The series consists of six rounds, with the host cities and dates as follows:
Just a few years after hosting the UCI World Championships in 2013, the Minsk Arena in Belarus made its return as a major venue on the UCI International Track Calendar by hosting the final round of the 2017/2018 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup in January 2018. This time, the multi-sport (cycling, ice hockey and speed skating) complex will host the opening round of the 2019/2020 series. The Belarusian Cycling Federation, led by eight-time UCI Track World Champion Natallia Tsylinskaya, has signed up for the next three years.
The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow will host the second round of the 2019/2020 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup. Great Britain has been a loyal partner of the series since the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. British Cycling has hosted a round of this discipline's World Cup every year, with the exception of 2008 and 2016, when they hosted the UCI Track Cycling World Championships. They rotate between the three main velodromes at their disposal – in Manchester, London and Glasgow. The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome has hosted the series in 2013 and 2016.
For the third round, the Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup leaves Europe for Asia, and the Hong Kong velodrome. After 2016 and January 2019, this will be the third time a round of the World Cup is held in the arena, which opened in 2013. Hong Kong also hosted the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2017, which were noted for the introduction of the women's Madison to the UCI World Championships programme. On that occasion, the delegates from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) were sufficiently convinced of its merits to add it to the programme for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The fourth round of the 2019/2020 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup sees the series head for Oceania to set up camp in the Cambridge Avantidrome. New Zealand made its debut in hosting international UCI track events with the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships, held in Invercargill, on the South Island, in 2012. Since then, the country has built a second covered velodrome on the North Island, in Cambridge, near Auckland, which has already successfully hosted the UCI World Cup in 2015 and will do so again in January 2019. The Avantidrome is part of a national sports complex for cycling disciplines (BMX, road and mountain bike), making Cambridge the official headquarters and centre of excellence for Cycling New Zealand.
The 2019/2020 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup will remain in Oceania for the fifth round of the series, which will take place at the Anna Meares Velodrome in Brisbane. It's back to business for Australia, having not hosted a major UCI track event since the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Melbourne in 2012. Work began on the velodrome – which bears the name of the young, legendary and now-retired Australian rider who shares the record number of world titles (11) with Germany's Kristina Vogel – in 2016. It was built to host the track events at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where a new world record was set in the men's team pursuit.
The final round of the 2019/2020 UCI Track Cycling World Cup will be held in North America, in 2020. Built to host the Pan American Games in 2015, the Mattamy National Cycling Centre (Ontario Province, Canada) hosted its first major UCI event with a round of the 2017/2018 Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup. The three-year commitment from Cycling Canada will end in the 2019-2020 season, a week before they host the 2020 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships.
The 2019/2020 UCI Track Cycling World Cup will form part of the qualifying campaign for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The 2019/2020 UCI International Track Calendar also includes the 2019 Junior Track Cycling World Championships, to be held in Frankfurt-Oder (Germany) on 25-27 August, and the 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships presented by Tissot, which will take place in Berlin (Germany) on 26 February-1 March.