OPINION: The UCI does it again after making the Vuelta a Espana clash with World Championships

Cycling has spent years trying to sell itself as a modern, global, professional sport. Yet every time the UCI takes certain organizational decisions, it signals the opposite. The announcement of the 2027 calendar has again left an indefensible impression: the Vuelta a España will partially overlap with the “Super” World Championships to be held in Haute-Savoie (in France, where the real business is).

It is true that, technically, not all major events will necessarily clash. The Super Worlds combine track, MTB, para-cycling, and multiple disciplines staged simultaneously every four years. It is also true the elite men’s road race could be held before the end of La Vuelta. But the fact this debate even exists is already deeply absurd.

It is impossible to imagine a football World Cup taking place while the Premier League continues. No one would accept Wimbledon’s final clashing with the season-ending ATP Finals. Nor would it make sense for the NBA Finals to be played at the same time as an Olympic basketball tournament.

But in cycling it does happen. And it happens because the UCI has spent decades showing a total inability to protect its own product. The cycling calendar looks like it was built in silos, where each organiser fights solely for its interests while the international body behaves like an absent referee.

The official announcement tries to downplay the issue. It notes that the 'Super Worlds' cover many disciplines and that the blue-riband event will probably not coincide with La Vuelta’s finale. But that does not remove the real problem: an event of that scale should never even brush against a Grand Tour.

The damage is not only symbolic. It also hits riders, teams, sponsors, broadcasters, and fans. Riders must split targets, plan difficult schedules and choose between preparing a three-week race or chasing the rainbow jersey. The result is that too often no single event gathers all the big names at their peak.

The UCI constantly sells the idea of “globalisation” and “growth of cycling,” yet it cannot even order its own competitions. The most remarkable thing is that cycling does not even have a calendar that huge compared with other global sports. Which makes these collisions even harder to justify.

In any other discipline there would be absolute coordination between marquee events. International bodies understand their flagship competitions must amplify each other, not compete for media attention. In cycling, by contrast, improvisation seems normal, and teams and riders are expected to sort the chaos on the fly.

The last point to make here is that it is “coincidentally” the Vuelta a España that overlaps with the Worlds and not the Tour de France. The Vuelta a España belongs to ASO, the same organiser of the Grande Boucle.

In short, the Vuelta and the Giro are treated as secondary (just look at this year’s dismal—if not shameful—field at the Corsa Rosa). We are told Pogacar must surpass Merckx by winning five more Lombardias. But he does not have to win five Giros, as the Cannibal did. Nor a bunch of editions at Middelkerke-Wevelgem.

Anyway, none of this is a critique of the great Pogacar - far from it. It is to tell the UCI to take its calendar seriously. It is an embarrassment to run a Grand Tour against a World Championships. Sit down and, beyond ASO not caring because the Tour already wins everything, give your calendar some decency.