2027 'Super Worlds' to be held in France, UCI announces

The 2027 'Super Worlds' are to take place in Haute-Savoie, France, cycling's governing body announced on Thursday, at the UCI's annual congress.

Next year will see the first ever multi-discipline event in Glasgow, where the World Championships for road, track, BMX, mountain bike and para-cycling, among others, will all take place over a week in August.

The new collated worlds is scheduled to happen every four years, preceding an Olympic/Paralympic year; the games are in Paris in 2024, and in Los Angeles in 2028.

Its successor in the French Alps will comprise of 19 disciplines, including gravel and junior worlds, as well as those mentioned above. 

It will be the first time the road World Championships will be held in France since 2000, when they took place in Plouay, and the first time the race has been to the French Alps since 1989, when it was held around Chambéry; the men's elite road race was won that year by Greg LeMond.

Haute-Savoie has hosted the road worlds before, in 1980 in Sallanches, when the men's road race was won by LeMond's future teammate Bernard Hinault.

The UCI's president, David Lappartient, said the 2027 course would be an opportunity for the "Grand Tour specialists and climbers" to claim the rainbow stripes.

"It will be time to have a World Championship where Grand Tour specialists and climbers will have a chance to become world champions," he said said at Thursday's UCI congress in Australia. "It is the know-how and expertise that have been rewarded, in an exceptional natural setting."

There will be 19 World Championships at the 2027 event, six more than next year. The new disciplines are gravel, enduro, pump track, junior track, cycling esport and polo-bike. These are in addition to BMX freestyle flatland, BMX freestyle park, BMX racing, gran fondo, indoor cycling, mountain bike cross country, mountain bike cross-country marathon, mountain bike downhill, para-cycling track, para-cycling road, track, and trials.

"I would like to congratulate Haute-Savoie on being awarded the organisation of the second UCI Cycling World Championships," Lappartient said in a press release. "Four years after the first edition, which will take place next year in Glasgow and across Scotland. With its vast experience and ideal setting, Haute-Savoie, in France, will offer the different and varied cycling disciplines optimal conditions for a successful event.”

Montreal has also been confirmed as the hosts of the 2026 UCI Road World Championships. The last time the event took place in North America was back in 2015, in Richmond, Virginia, where Peter Sagan and Lizzie Deignan won the elite road races. Montreal also played host to the 1974 worlds, with Eddy Merckx winning the men’s elite road race.

2024's road worlds will take place in Zürich, Switzerland, with the event heading to Africa for the first time the next year, with events taking place in Kigali, Rwanda.

The full list of World Championships announced on Thursday are:

2024 Junior Track – China (city not specified)
2024 Gravel – Vlaams Brabant, Belgium
2025 Gravel – Nice, France
2025 Junior Track – Apeldoorn, Netherlands
2025 Track – San Juan, Argentina
2026 Road – Montreal, Canada
2026 Track – Shanghai, China
2026 Marathon MTB – Primero San Martino Castrozza, Italy
2026 Gravel – Nannup, Australia
2027 Cycling World Championships – Haute Savoie, France
2028 MTB – Leogang, Austria