UCI Changes World Cup DH Rules with New Semi-Final Points, No Timed Training & More
After a big overhaul of the rules was released earlier this year, the UCI has gone back to the rulebook to make some more adjustments for the DH World Cup season ahead of the opening round next month. It is interesting to see these changes come shortly after the UCI test event at Lourdes, and we wouldn't be surprised if some of these changes have come from the rider feedback following the 'not-a-race' in France. Check out some of the changes we spotted below.
You can read the full rule amendment document here.
Semi-Finals are Worth Fewer Points
While we still don't know exactly how semi-finals are going to play out and whether it will feel like second qualifying or a second race, we can now see that the points haul has been significantly reduced. Previously, an Elite Men's semi-finals win would grant 200 points, just 50 points less than in Finals. Under the updated rules the same win in semi-finals will now offer 100 points for the winner, 150 points less than a win in finals.
There were worries before that semi-finals could become almost equal to finals in its level of importance to riders but with this update, this will most likely change as it doesn't grant many more points than qualifying.
Old Points
New Points
The Points for a Win are Back to Being Equal for Men and Women
One oddity we spotted back when the initial rules for 2023 were released was the change from the UCI and this year's new event organisers that a disparity between a win in the Men's and Women's racing had been created. Under the previous rules, a semi-finals win would grant an Elite Man 200 points while this was only worth 150 for an Elite Woman. The difference between the categories continued in the finals scoring with a Men's win scoring 250 points and the Women's 200 points.
Protected Rider Status for Finals has been Adjusted
In addition to all of the points changes the new rule update has added some extra statements around which riders will be protected for finals. Whilst the original document stated just three rules for protected rider status the new update has five conditions. The first new ruling is that in addition to the top three Elite Men and Women from the previous season, the best-ranked riders in the current standings can be added (that are not already included) until a total of 5 women and 10 men are reached.
A clause has also been added that if a rider in the first two groups does not confirm entry then the spot will not be filled be a different rider.
Alongside this a specific rule for the first round details that it will be the top five Elite Women and 10 Elite Men from the past season who are protected for the final. This is an increase over just the top three Women and five Men in the previous rule change. These riders will have to start a run in semi-finals but no matter the time they will still qualify. If the times of these riders would have meant they did not qualify then they will not take the place of a qualifying rider and will be added in addition to the already qualified riders.
 | For the first UCI World Cup round of the season, the top 5 women elite and the top 10 men elite of the final UCI World Cup standings of the previous season are “protected” for the final. They must start in the semi-final round but qualify automatically for the final in any case. If the times of the protected riders are not among the 10 best times for women elite or the 30 best times for men elite, they shall be allowed to ride in the final in addition to the 10 women elite and 30 men elite riders already qualified. |
Old Protected Status
New Protected Status
No More Timed Training?
The biggest casualty of the new rules could be the removal of the most important event of a racing weekend, Timed Training. In the latest rule amendment, it would appear that rules regarding making sure a Timed Training session exists have been completely removed from the training section. While this may not mean the complete removal of a timed training session with the rule being removed it most likely means it is no longer mandatory at a World Cup round.
Despite the potential removal of this timed session, we will still see the same number of timed runs in a race weekend with the new addition of semi-finals, although it will be sad to see no more early glimpses of who may or may not be going fast at the races.
The death of Timed Training?
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"The biggest casualty of the new rules could be the removal of the most important event of a racing weekend, Timed Training"
LOL.
I get the pro teams push for this as it’s guaranteed exposure for their top names; but I’ve never liked it.
It’s taking away chances for people who are best on the day.
So basically, if a protected rider is not one of the "best on the day" as you put it, then they are added to the back of the pack. The fastest 30 men and 10 women will still race, plus whoever was protected but slower.
Seems fair to me.
Someone feel free to correct me if I’ve missed (yet another) caveat that truncates those numbers….
Please note: the TV audience described above is nothing to do with actual DH devotees, just floating viewers and growing the market.
I think this is more for people who like their stars. I want to see Amaury do a race run no matter how slow he is today, I dont want to see up and comers or privateers get bumped to see it though.
Either way, im ok with it.
I agree. And to those who downvoted me, fair enough, but it’s how TV marketing works.
I only worked in, er, TV and marketing for 20 years so what would I know, right?
On the plus side, I found the XC broadcast was great and in some cases better than the past (better be since it's paid).
Did they have their say with this year's format?
Also: Did someone already find a site that re-streams the finals?
www.youtube.com/@uci_mtbworldseries
It's what the media would call a "U-turn" or even a "humiliating climbdown".
If Rob Warner can be defeated by a rally car, surely I stand a chance against Bruni if I strap myself to an unloaded cruise missile.
@danstonQ : Sexism would be in prize money and media exposure. And yeah, that's a valid point too. But the points awarded for the race results, not so much.
sarcasm off.
it’s obvious that sexism has played a huge role in discouraging women from pusuing things that seem “unfeminine”…but the last years have been encouraging; the talent is really growing
Even if it were true that Scandinavia has relatively more women competing, there aren't many competitors from those countries in the top male field so even if ratios were more equal there it would not immediately show up.
It is true that in most current societies, women are less competitive and goal driven, less interested in natural sciences, and less likely to take big risks. I firmly believe that a big part of that has nothing to do with innate properties but there is a self-perpetuating aspect where women don't do mountain biking (or fill in any other male dominated activity) because there are hardly any women that do mountain biking.
So yeah, long story (sorry again) but I just think more ladies from The Netherlands compete on bikes because they are on bikes already so it is easy to find the spark. And they are on bikes already because the culture is there and the infrastructure is there. I don't however think women are less goal driven by any means. Look at the number of women fighting for the environment, against repression, work hard to realize a dream or just indeed to be better than a direct competitor.
This was as a response to @housem8d who was saying that we don't see many female athletes because they were discouraged to embrace "unfeminine ways".
@danstonQ I mean coming from someone who's name says "in your as*" and can't debate with actual argument and just try to be insulting I guess I should take that as compliment. Feel free to share your opinion and arguments that would disprove what I am saying, otherwise I don't see any reason to discuss with a ideologist dumdum 3 :-*
"One day before the final a training period will be provided"
Timed training out......good. what a useless concept that had people making ridiculous predictions on timed runs that were worth nothing and meant even less.
Go ahead and judge me, I don't care. the real problem is the majority of wokies can't define what a woman is. Someone mentioned #savewomanssports.
Let me tell you a story about the first Trans woman in our sport. Michelle Dumaresq, formerly Michel. Much like Michelle Obama, she was once a man and transitioned to then hold the highest position in Elite for women our sport. This extinguishing at least a dozen promising careers and at the height of it all this man with a mental illness, who was only ranked mid-pack Expert men, had a feminist lesbian film crew follow her around and point cameras in everyones faces to get them to either capitulate or incriminate themselves on film. It was cheap, cowardly and clearly wrong. Just so a confused person could feed their XY ego. LGBTQwhatever should have their own league of sports. Like I said before, salaries based on revenue will quickly determine the fate of that.
So who has to change all this? Is it the UCI. No! Is it us men. No! Women need to embrace their empowerment, stand on their own two feet and take a stand for biological XX females. They are the only ones that can change this, but they are too busy fighting for equal pay to men that they don't notice that their own sports are becoming dominated by men posing women. Time to wake up ladies. Rise and shine or lose out completely. You are literally fighting for equal pay of all men at this point. You put the cart before the horse, should've locked down fairness in XX sports, but you went for the money, which was predictable and any XY man thats been through divorce wasn't surprised by this, now you ensured that mentally ill men can invade your arena for some easy money.
Is what I said wrong....maybe, might have hurt some feelings. But, guess what? reality and facts don't care about your feelings. So when the day comes that the top three "women" on the podium are XY and XX's start dropping out of the sport, just remember that all the signs were their and at that point it will be even more of a partriarchy then you think it is today.