Systems and Politics

The UCI has expanded the practical reach of AIN participation, following the IOC's latest direction on Russian and Belarusian athletes. But the central concern remains unresolved: Russian riders may appear neutral on a start list while returning to a sporting system whose anti-doping credibility remains under question. In track cycling, where team events are built on collective identity, that contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.

The AIN debate has not been settled. It has been widened.

Two months ago, after Konya, the argument was straightforward. Too much of the sport still disappeared into the morning session. Important racing was happening, sometimes exceptional racing, but because only the evening block was treated as television, the public version of the event remained incomplete.

Para-track is being trained, staffed and funded like a serious high-performance discipline while still being calendared like an afterthought. That mismatch has become too large to hide. The old argument no longer holds. This is not a category waiting to prove its seriousness. The riders are too good for that. The equipment demands are too precise. The classification detail is too exacting. The tandem partnerships are too important. The coaching load is too heavy. None of this belongs to a side project.

The problem is usually disguised as scheduling. A rider wants to go to the track, perhaps for a World Cup, perhaps for Europeans, sometimes even for Worlds, and the road team sees inconvenience rather than value. A road camp matters. A road block matters. The team ranking matters. Track, too often, still does not. The UCI's 2027 changes recognise part of that problem, but not enough of it. The conversation is usually polite. That is part of the problem.

Russian and Belarusian athletes may now compete under neutral status, but in track cycling the category still carries unresolved questions around credibility, anti-doping oversight and what "independent" really means in practice. At Konya, the contradiction was hard to miss. The crowd was sparse, but within it there were still recognisable pockets of support for the AIN riders. That was welcome in one sense. Sport should not become a place where athletes are met only with silence or hostility.

Revolution came with energy and eventually collapsed. The Track Champions League arrived with noise and eventually faded. DerbyWheel has been talked about as if it might offer something new, but it looks much more like another commercially interested distraction. Track cycling does not need another side project trying to become the answer. It needs the UCI to organise the actual sport properly.

At one point in Perth, above the racing and the usual indoor soundtrack of wheels, whistles and applause, came the unmistakable blast of a vuvuzela. It was faintly absurd, genuinely funny and, in its own way, rather perfect. One fan, somewhere in the stands, seemed determined to create atmosphere on behalf of an entire international series. It felt unmistakably Australian: noisy, committed, slightly chaotic and impossible to ignore.

For much of the world, TNT Sports is the only realistic way to watch elite track cycling. In a sport where visibility defines relevance, that matters more than ever. The coverage that does exist is appreciated. But the moments that shape the sport often happen where the cameras are not.

For the first time in several years, the UCI Track World Cup returns to the calendar with an event in Perth, Australia from 6-8 March 2026. But the start lists hint at a series that looks very different from the events that once made winter velodrome racing a global spectacle.

A week ago we were watching the European Championships in Konya - world records, sprint rivalries with genuine edge, depth across every discipline. And now the calendar rolls on to the Oceania Championships. On paper, it should matter. In reality, it often feels deflated after the fireworks of Europe.

With the UCI Track Cycling World Cup returning, this is more than a calendar adjustment. It is the revival of one of the sport’s most important modern institutions. For over two decades, the World Cup shaped Olympic cycles, built rivalries, and gave structure to the international season. To understand why its return matters, you have to understand what it once was. The Track Cycling World Cup was launched by the Union Cycliste Internationale in the early 1990s.