Yorkshire has been awarded the 2019 UCI Road World Championships. The decision was made by the UCI’s World Cycling Congress in session today in Doha, Qatar, which is hosting this year’s edition. The successful bid follows Yokshire’s hosting of a hugely successful  Grand Depart of the Tour de France in 2014, since when the Tour de Yorkshire legacy event has also been greeted by huge crowds.

The bid to host the eight-day event was submitted jointly by British Cycling and Welcome to Yorkshire, with Prime Minister Theresa May saying in August that “The government will underwrite the event and back it with £24m of investment so that we can get even more people to visit the region.”

It will include individual and team time trials as well as junior, under-23 and elite races, with starts in North, South and West Yorkshire, as well as the East Riding.

British Cycling president Bob Howden has promised that it will be “the biggest UCI Road World Championships in history.”

It will be the fourth time the UK has hosted the event, following Liverpool in 1922, Leicester in 1970 and at West Sussex’s Goodwood motor racing circuit in 1982.

More to follow