Considerations about border delays and the last-minute occasion organisation are among the many causes numerous girls’s WorldTour groups have opted to forgo subsequent month’s Tour of Britain Girls.
On Wednesday, it was introduced that solely 4 top-tier groups will participate within the stage race, which begins on 6 June. As a WorldTour occasion, all 15 WorldTour groups would have acquired an invitation.
The taking part WorldTour groups are SD Worx-Protime, dsm-firmenich PostNL, Liv AlUla Jayco and Human Powered Well being. They are going to be joined by a mixture of lower-tier Continental groups, together with all six of the British squads at this stage.
In statements issued to Biking Weekly, WorldTour outfits Movistar and Roland cited Brexit of their rationale for not collaborating.
“Logistics points inherent to the outside-European Union nature of each races [RideLondon Classique and Tour of Britain Women], and the already packed Girls’s WorldTour calendar make it not possible for the workforce to attend,” a Movistar spokesperson mentioned.
Ruben Contreras, supervisor of Roland, mentioned Brexit makes racing within the UK “very, very difficult”.
“Even when we’ve got the vans, the ATA carnet, all of the tools, all of the paperwork, it is nonetheless very difficult,” he mentioned. “We acquired caught on the customs border final yr.”
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One workforce advised of an incident through which their mechanics truck acquired “stranded” on the border for 2 days forward of a UK race. The workforce, which requested to maintain its identification nameless, insisted it had all the suitable paperwork, however was solely allowed to enter the nation lower than 24 hours earlier than the race started.
When the race was final held in 2022, then known as the Girls’s Tour, 13 WorldTour groups have been current.
Biking Weekly understands that British Biking, the occasion’s new organiser, skilled issue in convincing WorldTour groups to decide to the race this yr amid uncertainty of whether or not it might occur or not.
The occasion was faraway from the UCI’s on-line calendar in January, after its earlier organiser, SweetSpot, entered liquidation. British Biking then took over in February, with CEO Jon Dutton saying it might be a “race in opposition to the clock” to plan the occasion for June.
In an announcement, French Girls’s WorldTour workforce FDJ-Suez mentioned: “Our yearly race schedule was elaborated on the finish of final season with the given info we had again then, and when some uncertainties sadly nonetheless existed in regards to the Tour of Britain.
“Due to this fact, the workforce’s administration took the choice to race different competitions inside that time period – Might/June. The workforce has been racing the [previously named] Girls’s Tour since 2015 and can hold doing so sooner or later.”
Likewise, a spokesperson for Canyon-SRAM mentioned the workforce had “already made preparations and funds for coaching camps” through the time of the Tour of Britain Girls, “earlier than the race was introduced as returning to the calendar”.
The four-stage Tour of Britain Girls begins in Welshpool on 6 June and finishes in Leigh, Higher Manchester on 9 June.
“We’re very excited to see such a robust line-up of groups,” mentioned race director Rod Ellingworth in a press launch. “Along with the Girls’s WorldTour groups, we’re thrilled to welcome an thrilling mixture of UCI Girls’s Continental sides. Spectators can look ahead to an exhilarating race, and we will not wait to see them in motion subsequent month.”
