The UCI has decided to cut the omnium from six events to four with a focus on bunch racing, the programme taking place on a single day rather than two days as currently happens.
The move, which will see individually timed events removed from the omnium line-up, is part of a number of changes in track cycling announced following the UCI World Cycling Congress in Doha, Qatar, this week.
The scratch race, elimination race and points race will remain, and are joined by a new event, the tempo race, which will require riders to sprint on each lap. The time trial, flying lap and individual pursuit will all disappear, however.
“Dropping the timed events means the omnium becomes a pure endurance event, bringing better balance to the track programme,” the UCI said.
The omnium made its Olympic debut at London 2012 and British riders have enjoyed success in it. Laura Kenny won the inaugural women’s title and retained it in Rio this summer.
In the men’s event, Mark Cavendish took silver in Rio, while in London four years earlier, Ed Clancy came away with bronze.
Other changes introduced within track cycling by the UCI include a women’s Madison being added to the track world championships programme, an additional sprint lap added in the keirin, and changes in the qualifying formats of events including the individual pursuit, where there will now be two riders on the track at the same time.
UCI president Brian Cookson commented: “While it is important that we safeguard the essence of our cycling disciplines, we also need to be brave and embrace change in order to give our sport real meaning to those who are watching live or on screens across the world.
“The changes announced today show that we are moving with the times to ensure that our disciplines are presented in the most compelling way possible, and are rooted in the desire to attract and inspire even more fans into cycling,” he added.
The 2016-17 UCI Track Cycling World Cup – now in its 25th edition – starts in Cali, Colombia next month, with subsequent rounds in Glasgow, Apeldoorn and Los Angeles. The world championships will take place in Hong Kong, with the event hosted in Asia for only the second time in its 123-year history.
10 thoughts on “UCI cuts omnium from 6 events to 4 as part of track cycling reforms”
omni-: from Latin omnis,
[i]omni-[/i]: from Latin omnis, meaning ‘all’, ‘of all things’, ‘in all ways or places’
[i]-um[/i]: expressing hesitation or a pause in speech, as in “Um, what the hell are the UCI thinking?”
How can something reduced to “a pure endurance event” continue to be called the Omnium? Shouldn’t it be renamed the Endurium? Or the Bore-off?
Does ANYBODY within the UCI
Does ANYBODY within the UCI know, or for that matter, care about track racing?
The individual pursuit is the epitome of controlled riding on the track and, as such, long considered the ‘Blue Riband’ of track racing. The UCI reduced it a component of the omnium and now intend to lose it altogether. The Omnium is supposed to celebrate the best all round riders, no just endurance riders. Far from Increasing the number of ‘endurance’ races by including a spurious event made up for the purpose, they should be looking at ways to make it reflect the spectrum of track racing. Where, for example, is the individual sprint?
If the object is to make track racing more entertaining (?) I suggest the UCI sack whoever came up with this nonsense and appoint someone with some idea of track racing and entertainment.
The name Dave Le Grys springs to my mind!
poor logic – might as well
poor logic – might as well add the revolution longest lap thing where they all track stand for ages then sprint a lap!
IP, flying lap and TT would
IP, flying lap and TT would be the three I’d cut too if asked to make it more exciting
I think I’m with the UCI on
I think I’m with the UCI on this one.
The Omnium is great in many ways, as it’s a great test of overall ability across all formats and a real conisours event, but from an audience viewpoint, watching on telly or similar, it’s very long and can be difficult to get into if you don’t have the time to watch the whole thing.
Shortening to a single day makes it more likely that one can view the hole thing, and having all the riders on the track at the same time in all events means the excitement will be built up much more for each of the event.
If track racing is really your thing, go watch a 6 day event or similar where it will likely remain in original format. For the olympics though, where it’s competing with all the other sports, making it easier to access and more exciting makes sense.
Renaming it makes sense though, as I guess the UCI could now be done under the trade descriptions act, and they could perhaps keep it in original format for the cycling worlds.
joules1975 wrote:
to give the riders any chance of recovering enough to tackle 4 endurance races in a single day, round 1 of the Omnium will have to be the first event on track at the first session of the day, and the last round will be the last event of the evening session, so unless you spend all day at the track, and tv companies tend to only broadcast the evening sessions with the finals anyway, youll miss at least half the event, and as there are only 3 points scoring events before the points race, all the medal contenders are likely to be covered by tiny points gaps, which will change the tactics of the race because no-one will be allowed to take a lap, and everyone will just mark each other out and try and win the sprints, so rather than being more exciting, it will actually end up being slower paced and alot more static.
the only reason they are dropping things like the IP is it sinks track time, an IP round in the omnium can take nearly an 1hr to complete with just 20 riders. whereas a bunch race can be over in half that time.
theyll keep these changes till the next Olympics, and then change them once theyve realised theyve royally mucked it up
How utterly ridiculous. The
How utterly ridiculous. The point of a multi-event-event is it tests the riders’ all-round abilities.
It’s already somewhat strained by the need to ride around in circles but four different flavours of ‘ride a long way, go fast now and again’ is just crap.
Individual Pursuit in the omnium is a bit rubbish because as you don’t win by catching your oppo ultimately it’s a time trial but what’s wrong with flying lap (top speed), 4k time trial (sustained high speed), elimination (tactics), scratch (different tactics), points (yes, more tactics) and, if they really want to be innovative, an anticlockwise flying lap?
Based on the logic
Based on the logic propounding it’s a bit long, best get rid of the decathlon , heptathlon, pentathlon, 3 day eventing, dressage.
as for lacking excitement? Very subjective – archery for instance?
i liked the variety and challenge of sprint and endurance. I would have made the IP pure with it being a draw your opposition from a hat, flying lap is good too.
But dropping all the sprints! Next someone will suggest dropping the kilo! A blue riband event!!!
FatBoyW wrote:
Whole heartedly agree
It’s the variety that makes
It’s the variety that makes anything interesting. Maybe now they’ve removed most of the track events (from the omnium and in their own right over recent years) they’ll need to re-introduce some excitement by constructing tracks with a figure of 8 layout. UCI incompetence again