Belgium has been chosen to host the inaugural UEC Gravel European Championships, which is able to happen on October 1, 2023. The Continental Championships will likely be held within the Flemish city of Oud-Heverlee, which two weeks later, on October 15, will even host the beginning and end of the first-ever Belgian Gravel Nationwide Championships.
In a joint settlement among the many Union Européenne de Cyclisme (UEC), the municipality of Oud-Heverlee and Golazo, technical organisers for the occasion, gravel titles on the European Championships will likely be contested for women and men in elite and masters classes. The entire particulars for the race programme and programs are anticipated to be disclosed later this month.
The brand new Continental Championships for gravel is slotted into the Sunday previous to the 2023 Gravel World Championships, which is able to return to Italy from October 7-8. In 2024, the Flanders area will host the UCI Gravel World Championships, the occasion beginning in Halle and winding to a end simply north of Oud-Heverlee in Leuven.
“Gravel is a self-discipline which has considerably grown over the previous few years each by way of the variety of practitioners and media protection. It attracts all age teams and all kinds of cyclists, from professionals to eager lovers,” Enrico Della Casa, president of the UEC, mentioned in a proper assertion.
“The UEC has all the time been very attentive and open to new kinds, and that is why we needed this speciality to have its personal European Championships, and for this grand premiere, there may very well be no higher place than Oud-Heverlee, regardless of the totally different bids from varied international locations.”
The UEC mentioned it’s within the technique of confirming plans for the subsequent three years of the Gravel European Championships, solidifying the calendar by way of 2026.
Gravel gained a grip on a worldwide platform with the institution of the UCI Gravel World Championships final 12 months. That occasion, additionally organised by Golazo, was held in Veneto, Italy, in early October, with France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot profitable the elite girls’s rainbow jersey and Belgium’s Gianni Vermeersch taking the lads’s elite title.
Numerous regional and nationwide championships are actually held for the self-discipline of gravel. Among the many new entries on the 2023 calendar are the Nordic & Baltic Gravel Championship, comprising eight international locations within the Nordic Biking Federation, and nationwide occasions for Finland and Canada. USA Biking has hinted at becoming a member of the gravel foray in 2023, however is but to verify a date and site.
