The COVID-19 pandemic continues to chip away at the remainder of the 2020 Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup. [Only two cross-country races will be held in a row in Nove Město, Czech Republic, from September 29 to October 4: Downhill will be held in Maribor, Slovenia, and Lusan, Portugal, in October before the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Leogang, Austria, from October 5 to 11. The event will be held in Maribor, Slovenia and Lusan, Portugal.
The coronavirus outbreak led to mass cancellations of cycling events in all disciplines and a shortened road season beginning in late July. However, travel restrictions set by several countries have prevented athletes from participating in some races.
The Sibiu Cycling Tour, a UCI 2.1 ranked stage race scheduled to take place in Romania, announced that Sweden's Memil Pro Cycling team had to cancel its participation for this reason.
Many athletes from the U.S. are prohibited from traveling to Europe to compete in the race unless they obtained a long-stay visa or resided in a European country before the pandemic.
The 2020 UCI Masters Mountain Bike World Championships in Pras Loup, France; the 2020 UCI Mountain Bike Folcross World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy; the BMX World Championships that were scheduled to take place in Houston, Texas; the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in (Vancouver, Canada), and the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships that were scheduled to take place in Cairo, Egypt from August 16-21 have all been cancelled.Only the Mountain Bike Cross Country, Downhill and Eliminator (August 23, Leuven, Belgium) and MTB Marathon (October 24-25, Sakarya, Turkey) remain on the calendar for the World Championships in this discipline.
The UCI has stated that the 2019 world champions of the disciplines for which the 2020 World Championships were cancelled may continue to wear the rainbow jersey until the next event.
"Spring has been a very difficult time for cycling, but with the first road races in July and the UCI World Tour and UCI Women's World Tour expected to resume in August, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel," UCI President David Lapartiento said.
"However, as we have always said, the resumption of the season, in any discipline, depends on the progress of the health situation in the host country; several events scheduled for the second half of 2020 had to be cancelled because the conditions were not suitable to host them. This may mean that the UCI World Championships in several disciplines will not be held this year. This is very unfortunate, but the health of the athletes and everyone else involved in our competitions, or simply those who are there, is our top priority."
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