Places that deserve a WT-race

Places that deserve a World Tour race

The current current World Tour calender hosts races in traditional cycling countries like Belgium, France and Italy, but also races in countries with only few cycling tradition like China and the UAE. There are still countries and regions that with a big heart for cycling that are missing on this calendar. I've listed a few below.

Colombia

The Colombian and Basque fans are problably the most passionate fans in the world. The Basque Country has already an one day race and a stage race on the highest level but Colombia doesn't have the same honour. Nairo Quintana and Luis Herrera won the Giro and Vuelta in the past. Last year, Egan Bernal set a new milestone in Colombian history by winning the Tour de France. Maybe the moment is finally there for a World Tour race in the South American country?

South Eastern American States

Colorado is problably the heart of American cycling. Colorado and California did have and have many great races and cyclists over the past decades. In the 80ies we used to have the Coors Classic that connected both states. It would be nice to see a revival of this race. It could be an opportunity for the local teams to compete with the World Tour teams and the visibility of the race could also boost the popularity of cycling to the local fans.

Slovakia

Peter Sagan is probalbly the most popular rider of this century. Wouldn't it be a good moment to give cycling a boost in Slovakia and Central Europe by a larger extension? It could bring cycling more popularity and bring more talented Central-European into cycling. The region currently already hosts the Tour of Poland but I think that this region deserves another race on the highest level. Peter Sagan, Michal Kwiatkowski, Roman Kreuziger are only a few examples of riders that grew up in this part of Europe.

Scandinavia

Denmark and Norway delivered many great riders in recent years. 2 of the 10 last worldchampions come from these two countries and these countries used to have many good riders before as well. There is currently not any World Tour race in the north of Europe. That's a big underrepresantation on the highest level of cycling if you look at the given riders that were born there. That's why I would really support a Tour of Norway or a Tour of Denmark on the World Tour level. Especially Denmark is known for his heavy investments in cycling infrastructure and it would be a good opportunity to show it to the rest of the world.