At Cottbus, 485 riders from 32 nations contested 44 titles across six days. Its value was not simply in the number of races or medals awarded. It gave riders a meaningful championship during the years between junior promise and established senior performance.
The Under-23 competitors had their own entries, rounds, finals and titles. They were not racing for a secondary classification inside an elite event, nor taking part in a development meeting whose result would quickly disappear from attention. They were competing at a European Championships, with the pressure and consequence that came with it.
For many, Cottbus will be one of the most important track events of their season. Some will progress quickly into senior squads. Others will need several more years before they are physically, technically or tactically ready to compete against Olympic riders.
Europe gives both groups a recognised destination.
At world level, that destination does not exist.
The UCI Junior Track World Championships bring together the best junior riders from across the world, including some who are still only 16. Once they leave the category, the next global championship available to them is the Elite Worlds.
For an exceptional young athlete, that jump may be immediate. For most, it is not.
A rider can finish their final Junior Worlds and then face several seasons in which the only world-level track selection requires them to displace athletes already established within an Olympic system. A 19-year-old sprinter may sit behind riders with years of international experience. A pursuit rider may be progressing quickly without yet being one of the athletes trusted at an Elite Worlds. A bunch rider may have the physical capacity to develop but not the experience to become their federation's preferred omnium or Madison selection.
Those riders have not stopped developing because they are no longer juniors.
Track cycling has simply stopped providing them with an age-group World Championship.
The missing stage of the pathway
Junior success does not arrive with a reliable timetable for senior readiness.
An 18-year-old can be among the strongest riders in the world for their age and still require several seasons before the same qualities become useful at elite level. The speed rises, the racing becomes less forgiving and national-team places become more specialised.
A pursuit rider may need time to contribute inside a faster and more settled quartet. A sprinter may possess the peak speed to win junior races without yet being able to reproduce it through an elite tournament. A rider who dominated bunch events through physical strength may need years of racing before the same decisions remain effective against experienced senior fields.
The absence of an Under-23 Worlds does not shorten that transition. It removes one of the most useful targets within it.
The European Championships show what a proper Under-23 competition can provide. Federations can plan part of the season around it. Coaches can assess riders under championship pressure rather than relying only on training data or lower-level meetings. Athletes can measure themselves against the strongest riders of the same age before the senior standard becomes the only benchmark that matters.
The rest of the world does not have the same consistent opportunity.
Pan American and Oceania structures recognise Under-23 riders, although the titles are often awarded within broader elite championships. Asia does not currently have the same established Under-23 track programme as Europe, despite Asian nations having a long record of supporting the Junior Worlds.
A global championship would give every federation the same destination, regardless of how its continental confederation treats the category.
That may be particularly valuable outside Europe. European riders already have access to a deep continental championship and can often reach international competition without travelling across the world. Riders from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Canada, Colombia, South Africa and elsewhere may have fewer opportunities to face a genuinely global Under-23 field.
The Junior Worlds has repeatedly shown that federations will travel when the competition carries enough meaning. It has been staged across Europe, Asia and the Americas and attracts nations with very different budgets and domestic track structures.
There is little reason to think that commitment to development racing disappears when their riders turn 19.
The current championship structure loses them instead.
A classification is not a championship
One apparently simple solution would be to award an Under-23 rainbow jersey to the highest-placed eligible rider inside each Elite World Championship event.
That would recognise some outstanding young performances. It would not create the opportunity the pathway needs.
An Under-23 rider would first have to be selected for the Elite Worlds before appearing in the classification. For many developing athletes, that is precisely the barrier an Under-23 championship is intended to address.
A 20-year-old pursuit rider may be progressing well without yet being ready to replace an Olympic medallist. A young sprinter may be competitive against riders of the same age while remaining third or fourth in the selection order within their own federation.
Senior selection is not based on ability alone. It also depends on the places and roles available around the rider.
Awarding an Under-23 title within the elite result would recognise athletes who had already crossed that gap. It would do little for those still trying to reach it.
A proper Under-23 World Championship needs its own entries, rounds and finals.
The category should still be demanding. Riders would have to qualify, travel internationally, manage a world championship programme and perform against the strongest athletes of their age from every continent.
The difference is that they would not have to displace an established senior rider before earning the opportunity.
Road, time trial and cyclo-cross already accept that distinction. They award separate Under-23 world titles while allowing exceptional young riders to progress early into elite competition.
Track is no easier to transition into. In team events, it may be harder because individual ability is only part of selection. A rider must also fit the role, pacing model and existing structure of the national programme.
An Under-23 classification inside the Elite Worlds would acknowledge youth.
An Under-23 World Championship would create a pathway opportunity.
Expand the Junior Worlds
The practical answer is not another standalone championship.
A separate Under-23 Worlds would require another host, another place in the calendar and another major international journey for federations already balancing road programmes, continental championships, World Cups and the Elite Worlds.
Track travel is rarely simple. Bikes, wheels and equipment have to be freighted. Coaches, mechanics, medical staff and support personnel travel with the riders. Accommodation and transport costs rise quickly, particularly when a championship is held on another continent.
A new event could look attractive on the calendar and still struggle to attract the breadth of entry required to make it meaningful.
The existing Junior Worlds provides a much stronger foundation.
The venue, timing systems, commissaires, team areas and broadcast operation are already being assembled. Federations are already budgeting for an international development championship, while organisers are working with hotels, transport providers and host authorities to accommodate riders and staff from around the world.
Adding an Under-23 programme would not be cost-neutral. More riders would require more storage, training access, accommodation and operational support.
It would still be far more credible than building a second championship from the beginning.
The existing Junior Worlds slot is already the logical place. Extending the event by one or two days would create a six- or seven-day programme without requiring federations to fund another journey or the UCI to find another week in the calendar.
Careful scheduling, sensible entry limits and proper modelling of training access and infield capacity would be essential. The European Championships have nevertheless shown that a full Junior and Under-23 programme can operate within one event.
Track does not need two development World Championships competing for hosts and federation budgets. It needs one larger championship capable of serving both stages of the pathway.
For organisers, the combined format would bring more racing, visiting teams and local hotel stays while using much of the infrastructure already required for the Junior Worlds. It would cost more to deliver, but should be more efficient than staging two independent global events.
It would also create a stronger sporting week.
Some Under-23 riders would arrive with professional road contracts, continental titles or experience racing elite international fields. They would give the event greater depth and provide junior riders with a visible view of the stage immediately ahead of them.
The Junior Worlds would not lose its identity. It would become part of a broader development championship with a clearer connection to what follows.
A reason to keep investing
An Under-23 Worlds would give national federations more than another opportunity to win medals. It would create a defined target during one of the most fragile stages of a rider's development.
The move out of junior racing often coincides with changes in education, employment and road-team commitments. Riders who were central to a junior programme can quickly become harder to support. They are no longer eligible for junior medals but may remain several years from realistic senior selection.
That middle group is easy to lose.
Track opportunities narrow while road calendars become more demanding. Funding becomes harder to justify because progress is less visible. Technical work built during the junior years can be diluted as riders move into separate teams and training environments.
A World Championship would not solve every part of that transition, but it would give it a recognised purpose.
Federations could continue demanding progress without pretending the rider should already be ready for the Elite Worlds. Coaches would have a reason to protect track blocks, maintain technical development and keep investing during years in which senior results may still be distant.
The event would also provide a different level of international exposure from continental racing.
European riders would meet the leading programmes from Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Sprinters would encounter different technical systems and tournament approaches. Pursuit teams would face nations they rarely meet. Bunch riders would have to read fields shaped by racing cultures beyond their usual calendar.
That experience would matter even for riders who left without medals.
A World Championship provides a clearer measure of where a performance sits globally and which parts of it fail under travel, pressure and unfamiliar opposition. Coaches gain evidence about repeatability, adaptability, technical execution and how riders respond between rounds.
The rainbow jersey gives the event status. The wider value is what programmes learn from everyone competing for it.
Do not hold back the exceptional riders
An Under-23 World Championship should not become a ceiling for athletes already capable of racing successfully at elite level.
The best young riders must remain free to progress early.
A simple eligibility safeguard could exclude riders who competed at the previous Elite Track World Championships. That would prevent the Under-23 event becoming an additional medal opportunity for athletes already established at world level while leaving it open to those still trying to reach that standard.
The precise rule would need consultation. Track contains enough event-specific complications that no single sentence will resolve every case.
The principle is more important.
The Under-23 Worlds should create a meaningful destination for developing riders without pulling athletes backwards once they have demonstrated that they belong at the Elite Worlds.
Other disciplines have managed the presence of exceptional young riders without deciding that the category itself is unnecessary. Track can establish rules suited to its own events.
A full championship programme
The ambition should be to offer the full range of championship disciplines rather than limiting Under-23 riders to Olympic events.
The Under-23 years are too early to force every athlete's development around Olympic selection. A rider who eventually becomes valuable to a senior programme through the kilometre, individual pursuit, points race or elimination may still be discovering where their strongest contribution lies.
Removing those events would reduce opportunity at the point where the category is supposed to expand it.
Entry quotas and qualification standards are the more credible tools. Nations could be limited to defined numbers in each discipline, with qualification based on continental results, rankings or published standards where appropriate.
The objective should be a championship broad enough to be genuinely global, but controlled enough to remain operationally realistic.
A global destination for the years in between
Track cycling does not need to invent the Under-23 category.
Europe has already demonstrated its popularity and sporting value. Pan American and Oceania structures recognise the age group, even where titles remain connected to elite competition. Other UCI disciplines already provide rainbow jerseys for riders at the same stage of development.
Junior track programmes have also shown repeatedly that they will travel across the world for a championship they consider important.
What is missing is the decision to connect those pieces.
Track already identifies the best junior riders in the world and brings them together in a championship supported by federations across every continent. Extending that event by one or two days would give the next stage of the pathway the same global destination without creating another costly week of travel.
The Junior Track World Championships should become the Junior and Under-23 Track World Championships.
The riders are already there. The opportunity should be as well.
