UCI Track Cycling World Cup draws widespread praise

New Zealand’s first ever UCI Track Cycling World Cup has met with widespread praise from international cycling officials, teams and fans.

The event attracted 600 riders and staff from 39 countries to New Zealand for the second of three UCI Track Cycling World Cups, which attracted around 5000 spectators over the three days. 

The sport’s ruling body UCI were rich in their endorsement of the event.

“New Zealand has delivered technically a wonderful event, with a sell out crowd each day,” said UCI Vice President Tracey Gaudry.

“The testimony is that there was more than 20 World or Olympic Champions at the event, so it brought a world class field, delivered a premier platform for the athletes and the crowds loved it.”

“From an event delivery perspective, Cycling New Zealand haven’t left a stone unturned, it’s been exceptional delivery, everything has run very smoothly.  Track cycling is a highly technical event and certainly the UCI is looking at Cycling New Zealand and saying we’d love to have more track world cups out here.”


Crowds enjoyed world class track cycling including the brilliant victory in the Omnium by Olympic champion Lasse Norman Hansen at the Avantidrome in Cambridge. Photo © Dianne Manson

Cycling New Zealand CEO Andrew Matheson said that from an organisational perspective, event objectives had been achieved. 

The event is projected to generate an economic impact of around approximately $1.7m.  a global television audience to live television and streaming coverage as well as around two million impressions on twitter and massive global social media reach.

“One of our targets was to deliver a cost neutral event without compromising on delivery, and we’re on track to achieving that.  Having an event like this brings a lot of money into New Zealand, particularly the Waikato in this case.  The independent economic impact assessment will soon be completed, and we’ll then be in a position to verify the true value of these types of events” said Matheson.

“The general feedback that we’re getting is that we’ve done a really good job, that this is one of the best Track Cycling World Cups people have been to.  A critical thing for us is that we’ve built and tested a really good blueprint for delivering these kinds of events”. 

Reflecting on the success of this event, Cycling New Zealand has the door open to considering future opportunities for hosting more World Cup or World Championship cycling events. 

Partnerships with government, regional and local agencies and the commercial sector have been important in delivering the event and helped secure wider benefits like raising the profile of New Zealand as a cycling nation to a broad international audience. 


Lasse Norman Hansen. Photo © Dianne Manson

“Putting on an event of this scale for the first time takes a lot of resource and planning.  We’ve worked closely with local and central government to make it all happen, and we’ve had commercial partners on-board who, like us, are passionate about cycling and getting more kiwis riding bikes every day” he said.

“Internationally, cycling has a massive following.  This weekend New Zealand’s been on the global stage connecting millions of cycling fans and showcasing some of the fantastic cycling infrastructure we’ve got here. ”

Feedback from international teams has been overwhelmingly positive.  Australian cycling icon Anna Meares said not having to travel too far was a real luxury, one she hadn’t had since 2012 when Melbourne hosted the World Championships.

“It's wonderful for New Zealand Cycling that they did such a great job hosting this World Cup. I hope they put on more, because I love this track. The crowd was fantastic, and I'd love to come back.”