Cyclingnews: The new Women's WorldTour has just passed the half-way point. In what ways has the series begun to build a strong narrative around the sport of women's cycling?
Tracey Gaudry: Creating a UCI WorldTour for Women was an important milestone to help drive and support the growth of women's races, teams and riders. The number and quality of women's races have been on the increase for several years, however the UCI Cookson administration has been very committed to ensuring this development was accelerated. The UCI Women's WorldTour has been created in order to provide the best teams and riders with even greater opportunities to race in quality, high profile races throughout the whole season. And by doing this, it gives commercial partners, broadcasters and fans the opportunity to be part of, and experience a compelling women's cycling narrative.
CN: Has mixing stage races and one-day races proved to be a good decision for the series, as a replacement of the former World Cup?
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TG: The former World Cup was a great series – indeed, I competed in the inaugural Women's Road World Cup Series in 1998 – but it was difficult to create a season-long global narrative with 10-12 one-day races, however great those races were. The UCI Women's WorldTour calendar is composed of 17 races including four stage races; Tour of Chongming Island, Amgen Tour of California, Aviva Women's Tour and the Giro Rosa. There are 10 one-day races from the former Women's World Cup and three new one-day races – a total of 35 days of racing compared to just 10 in the final edition of the World Cup.
One of the strengths of our beautiful sport is its variety – the "pitch" on which our athletes compete changes from race to race, whether from a particular one-day race to another or from a one-day race to a multi-day stage race. The UCI Women's WorldTour has created a compelling narrative, bringing together the top level cycling, celebrating the different identities of each event while giving fans and participants the season-long narrative.
Of course, stage races are themselves a key part of road cycling, another good reason to bring them into the UCI Women's WorldTour and offer riders a comprehensive series enabling the teams' and riders' strengths to come to the fore across the season.
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