More than 120 riders, including the entire top 30, and more than a dozen teams have attached their names to a statement decrying a move to reduce the UCI Mountain Bike World Series Cross-Country Olympic (XCO) podiums from five riders to three.
The five-rider podium has been a long-standing anomaly at the World Cup races, dating back to 1994 when the delight and amazement caused by a then 17-year-old junior mountain-biker, Cadel Evans, rocketing into the top five of the elite race at the World Cup in Cairns saw organisers add another two positions. It then became a tradition.
“A podium unique to mountain bike, it has provided countless riders and teams with more exposure and opportunities. It's been the breakthrough for many athletes and given life to smaller teams,” said a rider statement shared by UCI mountain bike rider representative Rebecca Henderson.
Names attached include 2024 Olympic champions Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, World Champions Puck and Alan Hatherly as well as nine-time World Cup overall winner and 10-time World Champion Nino Schurter.
“Chasing a podium in our sport at the highest level has always meant a Top 5. It has added value and depth to the sport, given riders more chance to shine in the spotlight and added value to riders, teams and all of the sponsors and brands behind us who are the backbone of professional mountain bike racing.”
Teams are already under significant pressure, with costs rising and the growing challenge of finding enough sponsorship already demonstrated by a reduction in the number of UCI-registered mountain bike teams by more than a third this season.
Up until now, the extra opportunity for sponsorship and rider exposure provided by the five-rider elite XCO podium is a part of the sport that has survived many changes and was written into the UCI regulations. However, the sport governing body and Warner Bros. Discovery – which the UCI partnered with to broadcast, promote and commercialise the sport from 2023 to 2030 – announced amendments late last year that would come into play from 2025.
Among those amendments was that a red line was drawn through the five riders that item 4.10.007 had declared were required to attend the official post-XCO race ceremony XCO and it was instead replaced with a top three instead. The same was the case for the elite downhill podium.
“Warner Brothers Discovery have only one reason for reducing the podium to three riders, conformity,” reads the statement. While Warner Brothers Discovery is the key event promotor, the UCI Management Committee confirmed the decision.
The rider statement levelled criticism at the decision as lacking any real rationale beyond consistency across different race types. “To conform to the norm, to the other sports. A decision that has been made despite strong pushback from the athletes who are the very heart of the sport. We have been ignored and are left without a voice as the future of our sport changes.
“As our fans know, mountain biking has never been about conformity, we have carved our own path since the inception of World Cup racing in the 1990’s and we want to keep our unique character. The vast majority of teams and riders feel completely unheard on this topic.”
“This is our sport and we won’t let conformity strip away its character! We demand the 5 rider podium in 2025!”
"So insignificant for them but so meaningful for us"
The move away from a five rider podium is one of many changes in cycling that Warner Bros. Discovery has been involved in recently, from the cost implications of the integration of Eurosport into its TNT Sports Network in the UK and Ireland to the axing of the UCI Track Champions League, with track being another cycling discipline where Warner Bros. Discovery is in partnership with the UCI.
While to some, on the face of it, the podium change may not seem to be a big deal, the UCI MTB riders representative, Rebecca Henderson, was quick to deliver a long list of reasons why it was important to keep the practice in place, from the history of the sport and its character to the exposure for sponsors.
"I came from a team where a lot of my fourth and fifth places are what kept it alive," Henderson told Cyclingnews. "Being on the podium is enough for the smaller teams."
"For sure the big ones are going to want to win but not every team has budget to buy top riders and they have to develop them so when you break through for a fifth or a fourth, that's huge and its huge exposure for us as athletes. That exposure is is so important and then there is obviously the history."
What's more, while riders can clearly see the negatives of the move, Henderson said it's a struggle to see the benefits.
"The flip side is, why? We've never been presented with a good reason why. The only thing they've given us is because that's what the other sports do, and we want to be more in line with the other sports. They're taking away something that is so valuable for us," the top 10 rider and winner of 12 consecutive elite Australian XCO titles told Cyclingnews.
"We understand that they want to get the podiums done quickly, but it's an extra 30 seconds of your time to put two more riders up there. It's so insignificant for them but so meaningful for us."
It's not the first move to drop the podium size to a more traditional three, with the shift in fact originally mooted for 2024 but it was delayed following opposition to the move. The opposition hasn't gone away, with Henderson outlining that the athlete concern over the move continued to be expressed through the formal process but as things currently stand the elite XCO World Cup on Sunday at the first round in Brazil is set to spell the end of the era of five rider podiums.
"It's critical," said Henderson, to change course before then. "Once it's gone I'm not sure how we're going to get it back."
