UCI Pulls 4X from WC Circuit!

[Nikolais]

This morning the UCI confirmed what appeared to be a lack of 4X on the official World Cup Calendar released yesterday.

 

Following the publication of the 2012 Mountain Bike calendar, the UCI confirms that Four-cross events will form part of the programme of the 2012 UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships to be held in Leogang, Austria.

 

However, due to the high costs of constructing tracks and their impact on the environment, the UCI has decided to withdraw this speciality from the programme of events at UCI Mountain Bike World Cups from next season.

-- UCI Official Release

 

We can only wonder how many top athletes will bother to race and train 4X for World Championships only? There still appears to be a reasonable 4X circuit in Europe or at least parts of Europe, however 4X has been pretty much gone from North America for several years. All of the bigger North American events including Crankworx. the Sea Otter Classic, and the US Open have switched to a GS or Dual Slalom format for the past few seasons.

 

With Jared Graves committing full time to DH next year he won't really miss it, but how about athlete's such as this year's women's World Champion Anneke Beerten or US 4X racer Melissa Buhl?

 

Graves in one of the early rounds in Val di Sole this year. Graves has officially retired from 4X to concentrate on DH next season. Did he see this coming?

 

While 4X may have been taken out of the World Cup Circuit there is still a decent 4X scene in Europe with several National Series and also the Scwhalbe Euro 4X Series which winds up this weekend in the Czech town of Pec pod Snezkou. We're waiting to hear the results of a 4X Alliance meeting tomorrow morning, we'll post what we find out.

 

UK 4X racer Scott Beaumont had this to say on his facebook page

 

4X Alliance statement will be issued on Friday. It's not over yet #excitingtimes -- Scott Beaumont

[TNT1]

No great loss. Always seemed to forced an idea.

[Tumbleweed]

That's upsetting. Love the argy bargy on the WC circuit.

[nigelhicks]

This has been on the cards for awhile already ....

 

Windam almost pulled their entire event as they did not have the funds to build a 4x track last year.

 

We blew 90% of our track budget on 4x in 2009 ....

 

Also for such a small field (40 riders total) its not worth having an event that costs 3 times what the XC and DH courses cost to build.

 

They will most likely be replacing it with XC eliminator ... 4 riders Racing a short 1km lap "devil-takes-the-hindmost style" format ... similar to 4x ... but short lap XC racing.

Edited September 23, 2011 by nigelhicks

[nigelhicks]

No great loss. Always seemed to forced an idea.

 

Its always a loss when a discipline is removed from the roster ....

 

Id say the UCI need to reinstate Dual-Slalom like back in the 90's ... that was awesome! (Although ... again the venues need to be able to accomodate the tracks etc.) ... so its a bit of a catch22

[Tumbleweed]

They will most likely be replacing it with XC eliminator ... 4 riders Racing a short 1km lap "devil-takes-the-hindmost style" format ... similar to 4x ... but short lap XC racing.

 

From the calendar, it seems there are three of these planned: Houffalize, Nove Mesto na Morave and La Bresse.