June 4/21 8:40 am - Track Worlds Cancelled

Posted by Editor on 06/4/21
 

The UCI has announced that the Elite Track World Championships, scheduled to take place in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on October 13-17 have been cancelled at the request of the organizers, "as the health constraints and restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic make it impossible to stage the event in the country".

This is somewhat ironic, since the country had previously declared that the coronavirus did not exist in the country, and people could be arrested for suggesting that it did.

Turkmenistan, an authoritarian-ruled country, was a controversial choice as the host of the event, with an extremely poor human rights record. In 2019, it was ranked the worse country in the world - behind North Korea - for press freedom. The European Track Championships were also recently cancelled in Minsk, Belarus, another country led by an authoritarian regime.

The UCI says it is looking for another host for the event to take place on the same dates.