Women’s Tour cancels, Tour of Britain director casts doubt over Tour de France
Women's Tour to return in 2021, Tour of Britain organizer states he would be 'staggered' if Tour de France goes ahead.
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The Women’s Tour has canceled due to coronavirus concerns, and will not return until 2021.
Race organizers SweetSpot had already placed their June race on hold with a view of pushing the event to later in 2020, however, they have now taken the call to delay their six-stage tour until June 2021.
“We recognize the unprecedented nature of the current global situation and the challenges for the UCI calendar and so wanted to take an early decision not to look for an alternative 2020 date,” said Hugh Roberts, head of SweetSpot.
“With the extra time now available we look forward to making next year’s Women’s Tour even bigger and better than before and a fantastic celebration of cycling and Britain.”
The British WorldTour race, last year won by Lizzie Deignan, had formed one of the major stage races on the women’s calendar alongside the Giro Rosa. The Italian event is still slated to go ahead in 2020, and it is expected that the full UCI women’s calendar will be confirmed by May 15.
As well as organizing the Women’s Tour, SweetSpot is responsible for the 2.Pro category Tour of Britain. The race suffered a blow last month when ASO and UCI confirmed the revised dates of this year’s Tour de France would overlap their race, currently scheduled for September 6-13.
While the Tour of Britain is still due to go ahead, albeit possibly in a stripped-back format, race director Mick Bennett cast doubts over the Tour de France running as planned.
“I would be totally staggered if the Tour de France goes ahead,” Bennett told PA News Agency, Monday. “Staggered, but in a positive way if it happens. It’s three weeks long and a global event, so much more so than the Tour of Britain, in terms of the logistics, the number of people on the race, and the travel involved with people coming from across the world and areas with different levels of restrictions.”
The Tour de France is now seemingly locked in to run August 29 – September 20. The men’s WorldTour calendar is expected to be released on May 5th.