The two-time Women’s Tour champion Lizzie Deignan has warned the race will depart an enormous hollow within the GlobalTour calendar if it does now not move forward in June. The organiser, Sweetspot, mentioned ultimate week it will have to in finding new companions to fill a £500,000 investment shortfall with a purpose to degree a race that has established a powerful recognition in Britain and out of the country.
“The way the race is run is extremely professional and it’s probably been the most professional race we’ve had on the calendar,” Deignan mentioned. “It will be a huge loss in terms of the opportunity for British teams to have a stage like that to race on, but also internationally it’s a really important race because June doesn’t have many stage races. It’s brilliant preparation ahead of the national championships and the Tour de France.”
Deignan, who will return to racing in May after having her second child, is aiming to hit peak form in time for a race that, if it does go ahead, will feature a queen stage in her native Yorkshire. “It is what’s been in my mind during training rides,” she mentioned of the development. “If it is going, I want to reconsider my whole calendar.”
Sweetspot’s appeal for new sponsorship came as it announced a route reduced from six days to five. The past week has brought promising conversations with potential partners and Sweetspot is also exploring some crowdfunding, but the chief executive, Hugh Roberts, said nothing had materially changed.
“I would say it’s probably more likely than less likely [the race goes ahead] But it’s a very close call,” he said. “If we don’t get some good news by Easter we will be seriously doubting our ability to put together a race that makes sense for us.”
The three main costs are policing and accommodation, both about £50,000 a day, and TV production, which costs £175,000 for the week. When Skoda exercised a break clause in their partnership deal before Christmas, it added another £60,000 to the sum that must be found.
The race also relies on local councils putting in money to host stages in their regions, an ever-increasing challenge when budgets are being squeezed.
Doubt over the Women’s Tour comes in a year when Sweetspot was forced to cancel the Tour Series and its televised series of city center criteria. British Cycling has also cut the number of rounds in the National Road Series.
Although Roberts said there were no questions over the viability of September’s Tour of Britain, the route is not yet finalized as discussions with local authorities continue over the details of three of the eight stages.
Building on the success of the past decade, Britain has more riders in the men’s and women’s WorldTour pelotons than ever before. But, with the loss of the Tour de Yorkshire, Britain has lost 26% of its international race days since 2019 and there is a worrying picture for the domestic racing scene.
“At a time when the team environment is challenging around sponsorship and investment, it reduces opportunities for domestic riders to race in a full domestic series, that’s where the impact really is,” mentioned Jonathan Day of British Cycling. “On a more positive note, down the pathway junior and youth level races are holding up, but the concern is where those riders progress to if we don’t start to turn it around.”
Sweetspot is growing plans for the Tour Series to go back subsequent 12 months in a brand new layout, taking this 12 months’s hiatus as a possibility to ship a reboot interested by the United Kingdom’s largest towns and borrowing concepts from cricket’s Hundred. The affect of a discounted calendar is felt by way of the ones groups and riders who see much less alternative to race on house roads.
But Ricci Pascoe, workforce major of the Cornwall-based squad Saint Piran, mentioned he used to be seeking to assume undoubtedly in regards to the long run as he expands his operation sooner than launching a girls’s workforce in 2024. “For us it’s an exciting time,” he mentioned. “We’re investing in our team, investing in people, and looking for a change in the sport.
“Of course I’m concerned about the domestic scene, but we have to be part of the solution rather than moan about the problem.”