Giro Rosa surprised to lose Women’s WorldTour status

(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

The downgrade of the Giro d’Italia Femminile to a 2.Pro-level stage race comes as a surprise to the organisers, and leaves a gaping hole in the Women’s WorldTour calendar in 2021. The event was originally named to next year’s top-tier calendar earlier this summer, however, the sport governing body bumped it down to the second-tier of events after organisers failed to meet all of the WorldTour requirements, including no live broadcasts of the race during the September 11-19 race.

The organisers of the Giro Rosa have told Cyclingnews that the decision to strip the race of its WorldTour status has caught them off guard. "We, as an organisation, have not received any official communication. For this reason, at the moment, we do not intend to make any statements," a representative from the Giro Rosa organisation told Cyclingnews on Monday.

“The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has withdrawn the Giro Rosa from the UCI Women's WorldTour 2021 due to various shortcomings on the part of the organiser with regard to the specifications (particularly in terms of television coverage), despite repeated requests from us over the past few years. We hope that the Giro Rosa, a historic race on the professional women's road cycling calendar that is highly appreciated by the riders, will do its utmost to reach the level required by the UCI Women's WorldTour," read a statement from the UCI emailed to Cyclingnews.

Frustration mounted, particularly because organisers that apply to be part of the Women’s WorldTour are required to provide 45 minutes of live television broadcasts each day. This requirement was implemented by the UCI this year to help raise the level of viewership and professionalism of the races and to meet the fast-growing demands of fans interested in watching the top-tier women's cycling on live platforms.

Cyclingnews understands that the organisers of the Giro Rosa committed to the live broadcast in their application and that even the UCI were surprised to learn that no live coverage was offered when the race began. The UCI had confirmed to Cyclingnews ahead of the race that organisers committed to a lesser 20 minutes of programming for TV, scheduled during each stage of the Tour de France, but not even that happened.

In previous years, RAI Sport has provided short live segments of the race during the full footage of the Tour de France, followed by a post-race highlights package. It was announced in March that Pulse Media Group (PMG Sport) reached an agreement with Athletic Sports Group (ASG) for the media rights to the Giro Rosa. ASG confirmed to Cyclingnews on stage 1 that the race would only be offered as a "near-live" post-race programme, but when asked about the required 45 minutes of live television, they did not respond.

The only way of accessing the Giro Rosa was through text play-by-plays offered on social media channels, such as Twitter, from the UCI's main Women's WorldTour account (@UCI_WWT) and the Giro Rosa (@GiroRosaIccrea). There were also a range of post-race broadcasts (delivered "as-live") along with additional video content available on Flobikes, SBS, Eurosport and GCN, but even this content, that was provided by the organisers, was limited and often completely missed the unfolding events of each stage.

"As a rider you're just completely focused on getting a massage and going to bed," said Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), who placed twice on this year’s Giro Rosa podium in individual stages and helped her team win the opening team time trial. "You're not aware of the bigger picture. Of course it's just not good enough and it needs to be better, that's kind of an obvious answer for us when we're asked.

The organisers hit back at complaints about the lack of live television coverage of this year’s race, claiming the COVID-19 pandemic has forced them to sacrifice live coverage to ensure the race went ahead. They also said that television scheduling was a main concern, with the scheduled line-ups for live broadcasting already at capacity during September. Cyclingnews understands that they were also concerned about extra costs associated with increased expenses of the major WorldTour teams.

The Giro Rosa is a long-running women's race with more than 30 years on the calendar. From a historical context, it is the biggest and most prestigious women's race in the world. It is the only women's Grand Tour of the season that, normally, covers 10 days of racing and includes iconic mountain passes such as the Mortirolo, Stelvio, and Zoncolan. However, it has also been one of the toughest of the Women's WorldTour races to follow due to limited live broadcast coverage over the years and complaints of poor organisation are not new.

Cyclingnews understands that concerns extend further than a lack of live programming, and include security and safety, finances, and general race organisation concerns. This year alone, the peloton faced unannounced delays to the starts, and stage 4 started earlier but teams were not notified of the time change. In addition, the stage 6 route changed mid-stage making it slightly shorter, and the stage 3 run-in to the final climb changed. While stage 4's 170km race was celebrated by some, it was also longer than the 160km maximum race distance set by the UCI. There were also reports of safety concerns surrounding traffic.

The UCI had announced 25 events for the 2021 Women’s WorldTour calendar in July, and at that time it included the Giro Rosa, along with the return of this year’s cancelled events. Many of the notable events are returning to their usual spots on the calendar, such as the Spring Classics with Paris-Roubaix that was introduced as part of the revised calendar this year, the six-day Women’s Tour in Great Britain, La Course, Prudential Ride London Classique, the four-day Ladies Tour of Norway and the six-day Boels Ladies Tour, among others.

“It’s the only long stage race on the calendar, and it has a name which is linked to heroic performance, so it’s a pity they [the organisers] didn’t manage to fulfill the requirements. It leaves a gap in the calendar," Ronny Lauke, team manager at Canyon-SRAM told Cyclingnews. "I believe with that [2.Pro] category it won’t even be allowed that all WorldTeams can partake at that race next year."

There are currently eight WorldTeams, but the aim is to build to a maximum of 15 teams over the next three years. The UCI stipulates that Women's WorldTour events are open to all Women's WorldTeams, and then to Continental Teams, with a total of 15 to 24 participating teams permitted on the start line. The eight WorldTeams receive automatic invitations to the WorldTour events, as do the Continental Teams that are among the top 15 in the world ranking. Next year there are expected to be additional Women’s WorldTeams.

The new ProSeries events are permitted to invite 15-24 teams to participate, but they are only open to a minimum of four and a maximum of 10 Women’s WorldTeams, entirely at their own discretion. This means that if there are more than 10 licensed WorldTeams next year, not all of them will be invited to compete at the Giro Rosa. The remaining spots will go to Women’s Continental Teams, National Teams and a maximum of two regional teams and/or clubs from invited countries.

Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.

Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.

She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.