The UCI has granted RideLondon Classique top-tier race status on the 2023 Women's WorldTour calendar despite failing to meet the full live television and broadcasting requirements in this year's event.
The sport governing body communicated on Friday that it reinstated the three-day race with the highest event status because the organisers have provided evidence of contractual commitments to broadcast all stages of the race live on TV in 2023.
The UCI released next year's Women's WorldTour calendar in June and RideLondon Classique was the only race missing from the provisional list of top-tier races.
It had been temporarily suspended from the calendar after it did not provide the required minimum live TV coverage of each stage in 2022, and therefore the UCI had registered the race in the UCI ProSeries category for 2023.
UCI regulations stipulate that a minimum of 45 minutes of live coverage per day must be available for an event to be considered part of the Women's WorldTour.
Team DSM's Lorena Wiebes won all three stages and the general classification but only her victory on the last day following a circuit race around London was broadcast live because organisers offered no live coverage of the first two stages.
"It is, first and foremost, an unacceptable lack of respect for the teams and riders involved in the competition," the UCI stated at that time.
In addition, teams and riders expressed that they were dissatisfied with lack of live coverage at the event.
RideLondon Classique was not the first race to experience a downgrade due to its failure to meet the broadcasting standards. Last season, the Giro d'Italia Donne became a ProSeries race after its organisers also failed to provide live coverage in 2020.
RideLondon Classique's downgrade, however, was only temporary as the UCI also stated that it would reconsider its status as a WorldTour race for the 2023 season conditional upon "the presentation of firm commitments concerning the live TV broadcasting of all stages."
The UCI has stated that organisers of RideLondon Classique have secured such commitments for next year's event, and that they have provided proof of the contractual commitments for broadcasting.
"At its meeting in June 2022, the UCI Management Committee decided to suspend the UCI Women's WorldTour status for the British women's stage race and make its registration conditional on the provision of firm proof of compliance with the requirements for TV broadcasting – according to the UCI rules and the UCI Women's WorldTour organisers' specifications – for events in this flagship series for women's road cycling," read the statement from the UCI.
"In the 2022 edition of the event, the event organiser did not provide the required live TV coverage for each stage, but only for the last stage. This constituted a breach of the UCI Regulations and of the specifications that every organiser of the UCI Women's WorldTour is required to respect.
"As the organiser has provided evidence of contractual commitments to broadcast all stages of the race live on TV in 2023, the RideLondon Classique is back on the calendar for the world's most prestigious events in women's cycling."
RideLondon Classique is now scheduled for May 26-28 as part of the 2023 Women's WorldTour.
