There will be no C-class individual pursuit at the LA28 Paralympic Games.

Not one.

Every C-class pursuit contested at Paris 2024 has disappeared from the programme, while scratch and elimination racing enter the Paralympic schedule. The tandem kilometre has gone too, replaced by the tandem sprint, while the tandem individual pursuit remains. Women’s C-class time trials move from 500 metres to one kilometre.

The overall number of track medal events also rises, from 17 in Paris to 18 in Los Angeles.

Taken together, these are not minor adjustments. LA28 is substantially changing the type of racing that will decide Paralympic track cycling medals and, with it, some of the qualities athletes will need to succeed.

Yet for changes that could influence everything from athlete development to race preparation, they have attracted surprisingly little attention.

From Pursuit to Tactical Bunch Racing

The disappearance of the C-class individual pursuit is perhaps the most significant change.

At Paris, pursuiting rewarded sustained power, pacing and the ability to deliver a controlled performance against the clock. Los Angeles asks something very different.

Scratch and elimination racing introduce positioning, repeated accelerations, tactical awareness and decision-making under pressure. Rather than largely controlling their own performance, athletes must constantly react to the riders and situations developing around them.

That would represent a major transition even for an able-bodied pursuit specialist.

For a para cyclist, the change can be more complex still.

Depending on classification and impairment, acceleration, bike handling, balance and the ability to respond quickly to changes in speed or position can all be affected. Those factors already shape individual performance, but in tactical bunch racing they also interact with the movements of every other rider on the track.

A rider previously capable of producing an outstanding pursuit may therefore not transfer naturally to scratch or elimination racing, while another athlete whose strengths lie in positioning, acceleration or tactical judgement may suddenly have a Paralympic medal opportunity that did not previously exist.

That has consequences long before anyone arrives in Los Angeles. Coaching, athlete development, race exposure and event selection may all need to adapt.

LA28 is not simply changing the event list.

It is changing some of the qualities required to become a Paralympic champion.

One Kilometre for the Women

The move from 500 metres to one kilometre for the women’s C-class time trials deserves attention too, because doubling the distance changes far more than the number printed beside the event.

Pacing, energy contribution and the balance between acceleration and sustained speed all change with it. It also follows the wider direction of elite track cycling, where women’s timed events have increasingly moved towards the same distances used by men.

Again, this is not a cosmetic programme change. It presents athletes and coaches with a different performance problem to solve.

Tandem Sprint Arrives

The tandem programme is changing just as significantly.

The individual pursuit remains, but the tandem kilometre is replaced by the tandem sprint. One is brutally simple: start, accelerate and produce the fastest time. The other introduces qualifying, rounds, positioning, direct competition and tactics.

Anyone who watched the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow has already seen what that can offer.

The tandem sprint did not need selling. Once the tandems rolled onto the track, the racing did the work: fast, easy to follow and genuinely tense, with the head-to-head format producing some of the most memorable para racing of the Games.

At the time, it was easy to view it simply as an excellent Commonwealth Games event. Its significance now looks greater. Glasgow gave us a preview of the future Paralympic programme, and based on what we saw, there is plenty to be positive about.

So Where Do You Race?

If elimination, scratch and tandem sprint are important enough to crown Paralympic champions, where are athletes supposed to race them?

Not simply at national championships.

Not once a year at a World Championship.

Regularly, and against international opposition.

That structure barely exists.

Para cycling has an established international road calendar, including the UCI Para Cycling Road World Cup, but there is no comparable recurring Para Track World Cup series.

That was already a weakness in para track cycling. LA28 makes it much harder to ignore.

There is also a simple reason why the absence of regular competition matters even more under the new programme.

A pursuit can largely be prepared for against the clock. An elimination race cannot.

The physical demands can be trained and race situations can be simulated, but ultimately racecraft requires racing. An elite elimination rider needs to learn where to position themselves, when to move, how particular opponents behave, how the race changes as the field reduces and how to make decisions under genuine pressure.

For para riders, that experience may matter even more. Different impairments can influence how athletes accelerate, manoeuvre and respond to changes in pace, making repeated exposure to real international fields an important part of learning how a race actually develops.

The same is true of scratch racing. Tandem sprint combinations also need competitive rounds, qualifying runs and repeated exposure to opposing teams.

The more tactical the Paralympic programme becomes, the more valuable regular international racing becomes with it.

Yet the calendar has not developed alongside the programme.

Qualification Still Runs Through the Road

The contradiction becomes greater when qualification is considered.

Para cycling retains a combined road-and-track quota system for LA28, with 220 athlete places across the two disciplines. The first major allocation comes through the combined 2026 UCI Para Cycling Nations Rankings, which close on 31 December 2026.

Later qualification again combines road and track performances. The LA28 ranking includes the 2028 Road World Championships, the 2028 Track World Championships and every round of the 2028 Para Cycling Road World Cup inside the qualification period.

What it does not include is an equivalent series of Para Cycling Track World Cups, because there is no comparable track series on the calendar.

Consider a federation with a C-class rider who develops into a genuine LA28 scratch or elimination medal prospect.

That federation still needs to secure enough overall Paralympic places, and the qualification system gives it repeated opportunities to strengthen that position through road competition. Even if the athlete’s strongest medal prospect ultimately lies on the track, there may therefore be a rational reason to spend competition budget, staff time and preparation on road events.

For the largest programmes, the answer may simply be to race both calendars. Smaller federations do not necessarily have that luxury: international travel, staffing, equipment and competition all consume limited performance budgets.

If the most reliable route towards securing a Paralympic quota repeatedly points towards road events, that is where some of those resources are likely to go.

That sits awkwardly alongside a Paralympic track programme that is becoming more specialised and more tactical.

The Track World Cup That Already Exists — On Paper

Perhaps the strangest part is that creating an international track series would not require the UCI to invent an entirely new competition.

Its own regulations already provide for one.

The rules refer explicitly to both a UCI Para Cycling Road World Cup and a UCI Para Cycling Track World Cup, while also providing for track World Cup competition across events including sprint, pursuit, scratch and elimination.

Much of the regulatory framework therefore already exists.

The missing competition pathway is not missing from the UCI rulebook.

It is missing from the calendar.

That distinction matters because the argument is not that para track cycling needs an entirely new competition structure conceived from scratch. The rules already anticipate one.

What is missing is the regular international series capable of connecting the World Championships, Paralympic Games and the development process between them.

LA28 provides a very good reason to change that.

A Better Programme, But No Proper Pathway

There is an irony in all of this, the LA28 track programme itself looks promising.

Tandem sprint has already shown what it can offer in Glasgow, while scratch and elimination bring a very different tactical dimension to the C-class programme. The women’s move to one kilometre creates another meaningful change in the demands of competition.

Los Angeles could produce excellent para track racing.

But changing the Games programme is only one part of developing the sport.

Athletes should not arrive at the Paralympic Games having spent much of the preceding cycle searching for meaningful opportunities to race their Paralympic events. Nor should federations with genuine track medal ambitions find that the strongest qualification incentives repeatedly point towards the road.

Separate road and track quotas are not necessarily the answer. Many para cyclists successfully compete across both disciplines, and there are obvious advantages to maintaining flexibility within the system.

But equivalent opportunity should be the minimum.

A genuine Para Track World Cup series during the LA28 cycle would give athletes regular international competition, provide national programmes with meaningful performance benchmarks and give para track cycling far greater visibility between major championships.

It would also create an obvious track equivalent within future qualification systems.

The regulations already allow for it, the Paralympic programme now gives the UCI a reason to use them.

LA28 Should Be the Beginning

Glasgow showed what para track cycling can be when compelling events are placed in front of an audience and simply allowed to race.

The tandem sprint was not exciting because it was a para event that needed to be promoted or explained. It was exciting because it was good racing.

Los Angeles appears to have recognised some of that potential.

Tandem sprint is coming to the Paralympic Games. Scratch and elimination will give the C classifications a very different character, while the wider track programme could produce some of the most accessible and engaging para racing we have seen at a Paralympic Games.

That should be welcomed.

But changing the Paralympic programme should be the beginning of rebuilding para track cycling, not the end of it.

The calendar now needs to catch up, and so does the qualification pathway.

Because if these events are important enough to crown Paralympic champions, they are important enough to race internationally between Paralympic Games.