Cycling stars to boost Glasgow’s UCI World Championships

Tokyo Olympic medallists Katie Archibald and Neah Evans helped mark two years to go to the major event in August last year.

And organisers have said they want to involve more cycling champions as “part of selling tickets and marketing the event” as well as “inspiring young people to get involved”.

Council bosses hope the inaugural UCI World Championships in August next year will encourage residents to take up cycling for sport, recreation and travel.

Promote the event

Labour councillor Archie Graham asked whether “champions” would be used to promote the event.

“I’m thinking particularly of people like David Millar, a famous son of the city.

“He did say, when he was a participant in the Commonwealth Games, that if Glasgow ever needed his help, he would be more than happy to come and lend us a hand.”

Scotland’s Archibald, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, and Evans, who won silver in Tokyo last year, joined Shanaze Reade, a British BMX world champion and 2023 World Championships ambassador, in Kelvingrove Park to kick-off the two-year countdown last August.

‘Enormous difference’

It was revealed that five venues will host eight of the 13 disciplines: Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow BMX Centre in Knightswood, Emirates Areana, Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and George Square.

Council leader Susan Aitken said: “The existence of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow has made an enormous difference already to cycling in Scotland.

“Champions have emerged because that facility exists. We are able to demonstrate the difference that investment in sport and the difference that hosting major events like this makes.

“It does produce sporting champions here in Scotland as well as that increase in mass participation we really want to focus on.”

Inspiring young people

Colin Edgar, head of communication and strategic partnerships at the council, and a director on the Cycling Worlds board, said: “My kid was training on the velodrome last week alongside Jack Carlin, who is a recent Olympic medallist, and there are not many sports where teenagers get to rock up and train alongside Olympic medallists.

“That is certainly something we want to do as part of selling tickets and marketing the event but also inspiring young people to get involved.”

And a council officer added the organisers have plans to “bring a number of ambassadors onto the championships”. “They’ve already secured Shanaze Reade, a former BMX world champion. as the young people’s ambassador.

“They’re looking at ambassadors across women and girls, sustainability and a real major event winner from the past as well. There will be further announcements.”

What will happen at the event?

The event — which will bring together 13 existing individual world championship disciplines — could bring a pre-pandemic estimate of £67m to the Scottish economy, with Glasgow, the main accommodation hub, set to benefit.

There will be road cycling, BMX, mountain biking, track cycling and indoor cycling. Over 100 countries and around 2600 elite cyclists are expected to compete, with more than 200 world champions crowned during the event.

An additional 8000 cyclists could take part in a mass participation event.

At a meeting on Thursday, councillors agreed that staff could enter into talks with 2023 Cycling World Championships Ltd to finalise the contractual delivery of the event.

The championships will be delivered in partnership between the UCI, which is the international cycling federation, the Scottish Government, Glasgow, UK Sport and British Cycling.

The council approved £15m of funding for the 2023 championships in 2018, with £12m to Cycling World Championships Ltd for delivery and £3m for a city activation programme, managed by Glasgow Life.

A ‘hub and spoke’ model will be used to deliver the event, with the ‘spokes’ involving contracts which devolve delivery, allowing partners with “specific capability and expertise” to run disciplines.

Mr Edgar said: “There is a mature ecosystem of event deliverers in some of these cycling disciplines in Scotland.

“Particularly in the mountain biking space, there are some substantial and long-standing Scottish events companies who deliver UCI class mountain biking events in the country already.

“There are people out there who are already delivering these world class events on their own. The hope of having the spoke model is you don’t have to create that as it exists already, but that’s currently subject to procurement.”