Cyclocross Social

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[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

The Danish region of Fyn has placed a bid to bring the 2031 cyclocross world championships to the castle of Egeskov. This region has previously hosted the Bogense world championships 🇩🇰
Other bids for the 2031-2033 cycle are Benidorm (visited by the UCI last month) and Hulst 🇪🇸🇳🇱

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle @lukascph Cyclocross certainly has potential to become a lot more international. It’s hard to see the quota be raised, but perhaps it could replace Nordic Combined which is at risk

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

With Milan-Cortina ongoing, the push to add cyclocross to the 2030 Winter Olympics is at the centre of attention.

While there are reasons to add the sport, it lacks international depth, even compared to existing sports

All the numbers op cyclocross vs the Olympic roster. 🧵👇

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle @lukascph Cyclocross is still more dominated than almost all other sports. Besides, its much harder to add a sport in the light of the IOC athlete quota. Do do that, there would need to be fewer athletes in another sport. Would only happen is the value of the new event is much higher

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@lukascph @Cyclingbottle Yes, many countries have one sport in which they get a large share of their medals. And then for mountainous/snow countries its easier to get a few medals in adjacent sports, like how Netherlands went long track to short track

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle The same Netherlands that won just 2 golds on the long track this year? Speedskating is far more competitive these days than it gets credit for

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle It’s two different sports, with different rules and different athletes. I encourage you to apply this logic to all countries. Without sliding, Germany would be nowhere near. Without biathlon, france would lose half of its medals. Sweden without xco skiing would fall

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle Thankfully we also ran an event based analysis in our article to address this bias. Cyclocross still is relatively dominated at the gold medal level, and not international in top 10 depth of field

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle The thing is, speedskaing isnt exactly a medal machine anymore. There are a lot of other competitive countries that also win medals. There are more lobsided sports at the olympic than speedskating

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle There's a difference between the 1 and 2 being from the same country, and the Dutch-Belgian duopoly in cyclocross. The full numbers just dont reflect that positively for cyclocross. That can change, but right now there are better arguments for Olympic CX than international status

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle Then you need to do a clean comparison. Netherlands has won 10/33 on the long track, 6/21 on shorttrack. 7 countries medaled on shorttrack, 9 on the long. In percentages, thats far less than in cyclocross

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle This doesnt have to do with the point we made above, but it is one of the main points of the article. We wrote that Olympic status is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it unlocks NOC subsidies.
We however need to distinguish between international potential and reality

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle You're arguing a different point, one where other sports should have fewer events so they more closely match. That's not the IOC reality. They want the most possible events with the fewest number of total athletes. We can want that perception to change, but money talks

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle Nice that the women’s top 10 was more international this year, but that’s still not special compared to most top 10s at the Olympics. As we write, Olympic status itself can be a catalyst for internationalisation, but the data now doesn’t show cyclocross is very international

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@Cyclingbottle You cant compare absolute and relative numbers, especially when you combine two distinct sports (short & long track). Yes, The Netherlands wins a lot of medals in long track, but it’s not nearly as dominated as cyclocross

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@NikolasRuffet For sure! We elaborate on that in the full article, which is not behind a paywall

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

Further, CX lacks Top 10 depth compared to other events.
Olympic quotas would force a diverse leaderboard, but is that enough?
There are reasons to include cyclocross (e.g. climate resilient & cheap to host), but international appeal isn't one of them

https://t.co/Sn7MjLOjJJ

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

Many sports have more than two events, making a sport based comparison biased. On an event level (M/F paired) CX is in the middle of the pack, but if this convinces the IOC remains to be seen.
CX is big in small market countries, and one event per athlete earns the IOC less $$$

[Cyclocross Social @Cyclocrosss]

@cyclocross24 Wouldn’t surprise me if 28 is a protected date