While the Giro d’Italia postponement confirmed last week pushed pro race cancellations due to Covid-19 into May, more races have now been cancelled.
The latest moves look like the beginnings of widespread race cancellations for a two-month period.
The organisers of the Giro, RCS Sport, said measures
taken by the Hungarian government to combat the disease meant the race’s
opening stages, due to begin in Hungary on May 9th, could not take place.
That fact, coupled with rapidly worsening Covid-19
crisis, resulted in the Giro being postponed.
However, now the Tour de Romandie and Tour of the Alps
have both been cancelled.
These have been scrapped despite the fact they do not face the same international logistical problems that the Giro did - with Hungary's authorities effectively cancelling the Giro's opening stages due to take place there.
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Furthermore, the cancellation of the Swiss and French races has been announced despite those events starting 2½ and 3½ weeks after the current UCI racing lock-down period.
The UCI had ordered that UCI-ranked events not proceed until after April 3rd anywhere in the world impacted by Covid-19.
But now event organisers have begun to decide for themselves that races scheduled long after that UCI deadline should be called off immediately.
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Tour of the Alps was due to take place from April 20th to 24th and Tour de Romandie had been set to unfold from April 28th to May 3rd.
That now means the span of race cancellations - excluding the Giro with its hand forced by Hungary - is running to two months; Strade Bianche the first major cancellation on March 7th.
The move by both the Tour of the Alps and Tour de Romandie organisers to cancel means other races due to take place before those two stage races are now at risk.
These include Paris-Roubaix (April 12th), Amstel Gold (April 19th), La Flèche Wallonne (April 22nd) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 26th).
On the UK scene, the Rutland Melton Classic set for April
26th is already scrapped, which puts the Tour de Yorkshire, set to run from
April 30th to May 3rd, now at real risk.
Today a number of European countries, including France
and Germany, signaled plans to close their borders while Taoiseach Leo Varadkar
said EU-wide travel restrictions were being devised.
That development, especially as some reports suggested restrictions could last for up to 30 days, would lead to the immediate cancellation of many more international races.
Already the list of cancellations is so large there is little hope the vast majority of the cancelled or postponed races could be run at a later date this year.
In a real sign that the UCI cannot tell when racing will begin again, it has ordered a stop to the Olympic qualifying process for those disciplines in which qualification was not already completed.
That includes BMX racing and BMX freestyle as well as MTB
and road paracycling. Rather than the qualification processes continuing, the
rankings as of March 3rd will decide who qualifies for Tokyo, if the Olympics
go ahead.
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