Track cycling will have a new look from 2026 onwards after the UCI Track Champions League was axed just four years into an eight-year initial term, cycling's governing body and its partner Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Sports announced on Monday.
The series was introduced in 2021 in an overhaul of the track discipline, with the aim of engaging new audiences through short-format, data-driven and exciting rounds of racing throughout the winter.
WBD produced and distributed the first four years of the competition, but will now look "to redefine its involvement in the promotion of track cycling", by committing to broadcasting a new UCI Track World Cup in the run-up to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Compared to the Track Champions League, WBD's commitment appears to have waned from being a central partner and producer of the series to purely broadcasting the World Cup races.
The new competition will arrive after a change to the current UCI Track Nations Cup in 2026, which replaced the previous UCI Track Cycling World Cup that ran from 1993 to 2020.
It will play "a crucial role in the qualification of nations and their athletes for the UCI World Championships for track cycling and for the discipline’s Olympic events," read a press release from the UCI.
"This series will consist of three rounds, with a programme that will feature the Olympic events as well as the elimination race, a format that is always very popular with the public."
The UCI has called for bids to organise the rounds of the 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions of the new UCI Track World Cup, with calendars to be announced after approval by the UCI Management Committee.
"This event has helped to promote track cycling like never before," said UCI President David Lappartient.
"With the continuation of our collaboration, which over the next three years will focus on coverage of the UCI Track World Cup, I am confident that track cycling will continue to grow in popularity, leading up to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games and beyond."
Between 2021 and 2024, the services took place at several velodromes in London, Paris, Mallorca, Apeldoorn and Berlin.
The cancellation of the Track Champions League means that 2024 was the final edition and that sprinters Harrie Lavreysen and Alina Lysenko and endurance riders Dylan Bibic and Katie Archibald were the final overall winners.
Its final edition last December ended abruptly when Great Britain's Katy Marchant and Germany's Alessa-Catriona Pröpster collided, crashed and went over the trackside barrier into the crowd at high speed. Racing was suspended and Marchant was the worst affected, thankfully only sustaining a broken arm and nothing more serious.
