The UCI World Championships are annual competitions promoted by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to determine world champion cyclists. They are held in several different styles of racing, in a different country each year. Championship winners wear a white jersey with coloured bands around the chest for the following year. The similarity to the colours of a rainbow gives them the colloquial name of " the rainbow jersey ." The first three individuals or teams in each championship win gold, silver and bronze medals. Former world champions are allowed to wear a trim to their collar and sleeves in the same pattern as the rainbow jersey.
15-577: Championships are held for men and for women in road cycling , track cycling , cyclo-cross , mountain biking , gravel , BMX , and indoor cycling . There are also championships for disabled competitors. The first recognised world championships were promoted by the International Cycling Association , a body formed in November 1892 by cycling bodies from Britain, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Germany and Belgium. The ICA
30-613: The rainbow jersey in races of that category (either mass start or time trial) until the next championships. It currently includes the following championships: Former events: The first world championships took place in 1921, though the only event that was contested was the men's road race for amateurs . The first professional world championship took place in July 1927 at the Nürburgring in Germany where Italian Alfredo Binda won
45-625: The 10 km and Henie of Norway the 100 km. Professionals raced from 1895, in Cologne , when Jimmy Michael of Britain won the 100 km. The definition of amateurs and professionals was important for the International Cycling Association, to which the National Cyclists Union would allow only national bodies which shared its own strict definition of amateurism . That definition excluded
60-541: The International Cycling Association vanished. In 2023, the various UCI World Championships were held in the same location for the first time, with 190 world titles awarded at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. This will be held every 4 years in future, with the 2027 edition to be held in Haute-Savoie, France . UCI Road World Championships The UCI Road World Championships are
75-473: The Team Time Trial from 2012 to 2018 are excluded. Jean Aerts One-day races and Classics Jean Aerts (8 September 1907 – 15 June 1992) was a Belgian road bicycle racer who specialized as a sprinter . Aerts became the first man to win both the world amateur (1927) and professional (1935) road race championships. In 1935, Aerts captured first place and the gold medal at
90-497: The annual world championships for bicycle road racing organized by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). The UCI Road World Championships consist of events for road race and individual time trial , and as of 2019 , a mixed team relay . All the world championship events are ridden by national teams, not trade teams such as in most other major races. The winner of each category is entitled to wear
105-584: The latter part of course is usually held on a circuit, of which the riders complete multiple laps. The world championship road race and two of the three Grand Tours (namely the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France ) form the Triple Crown of Cycling . Note: Not held from 1939 to 1945 because of World War II . Medal table includes only medals achieved in senior events . Mixed nation team events such as
120-598: The main French body, the Union Vélocipèdique Française, which had been allowed to observe the founding meeting but not to vote. French discontent at that exclusion, and that the British insisted on separate votes for England, Wales, Ireland and its colonies, led France and other countries to set up a rival body before the 1900 races. The Union Cycliste Internationale became the world governing body and
135-442: The men's team time trial. In 2012, the men's team time trial was reinstated, and a women's team time trial added to the program; both were contested by trade teams. In 2019, the team time trial events for men and women were replaced by a mixed relay team time trial. Until 1995, there were separate races for male professional and amateur riders. In 1996, the amateur category was replaced with a category for men under-23 years old, with
150-640: The professional UCI Road World Championships in Floreffe , Belgium. In 1927 professional and amateur riders rode concurrently at the Nürburgring in Germany and Aerts finished 5th, the highest ranked amateur. He also competed in three events at the 1928 Summer Olympics . Although he lacked climbing ability for major tours, he used his sprinting ability to win 11 stages of the Tour de France , including six in 1933. This biographical article related to
165-509: The professional category becoming an open (later elite) category. Since 1995 until 2022, the event has been held towards the end of the European season in late September, usually following the Vuelta a España . Before that, the event had always been a summer race, held in late August or the first week of September (except for 1970, when it was a mid-season summer event). An exception to this
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#1732780412297180-464: The professional men's race and Belgian Jean Aerts won the men's amateur race. The women's road race was introduced in 1958. A men's team time trial, contested by national teams, was introduced in 1962. Beginning in 1972, the team time trial was discontinued in Olympic years only. Individual time trials in all categories were added in 1994, which was also the last year for the original incarnation of
195-674: Was formed at the initiative of the National Cyclists' Union in Britain. Until then its own championships, open to riders from any country, were considered the unofficial championships of the world. It was because the sport needed world championships independent of any national body that Henry Sturmey of the magazine The Cyclist and later founder of the Sturmey-Archer gear company proposed an International Cyclists Association in 1892. The first recognised world championship
210-518: Was held in Chicago in 1893, with track races at one mile, 10 kilometres, and a 100 km race in which riders were paced by tandems of up to six riders. An American, Arthur Augustus Zimmerman , won the mile and 10 km races and a South African, Mentjes, won the 100 km. The 1894 championship in Antwerp were, like Chicago, for amateurs. Lehr, a German, won the mile, Jaap Eden of Holland won
225-491: Was in 2023 , when it was held in August as part of a combined multi-disciplinary UCI Cycling World Championships , intended to be held every four years. The world championships are located in a different city or region every year. The event can be held over a relatively flat course which, in the case of the road race, favors cycling sprinters or a hilly course which favors a climbing specialist or all-rounder . In each case,
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