UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships to the Triangle Region
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has just announced that the 2022 Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships will be staged in Haderslev, Denmark.
A major cycling event in Haderslev has been planned for 2022. The world’s elite cyclists will join the city when Denmark's Cycling Federation (DCU) - in collaboration with the Triangle Region Denmark, Haderslev Municipality and Sport Event Denmark - will host the UCI World Championships mountain bike marathon.
’’ We are really looking forward to this event; both to showing our city and the surrounding nature to participants from all over the world, and also to giving our Danish citizens and tourists a world-class sports experience,’‘ says Mayor H.P. Geil.
It is not only the elite who have the opportunity to test the 100 km long World Championship track. There will also be a race on the same track, where all interested can participate. The course starts and ends in the city center, but most of the course will be in the forests around the city, and the ambition is to make an appealing course for elite and others by offering a wide range of technically difficult stretches, hikes and some straight stretches where there is opportunity to get speed on the bikes.
‘‘The Danish Cycling Federation is very eager to build on the momentum we have started with off-road biking. In 2019, we look forward to welcoming the World Championship in Cyclo-Cross and we are very happy to welcome the best mountain bikers to Denmark 3 years later. We are experiencing rapid growth in numbers of mountain bikers, so it is just the right time for us to have an MTB-event of this magnitude in Denmark’’ says Henrik Jess Jensen, Denmark’s Cycling Federation and the national sporting event organization, Sport Event Denmark agrees:
"We have positive experiences in Denmark connecting elite and recreational participation with major international sporting events. It creates awareness of the event, sport, and athletes. With the UCI World Championships in the mountain bike marathon in Haderslev, we will again be able to show that Denmark is in high speed, in collaboration with UCI, DCU and the Triangle Region Denmark," says Lars Lundov, CEO Sport Event Denmark
The Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships was awarded to the Triangle Region as the result of a joint sporting event strategy, in which the seven municipalities have actively pursued and been awarded hosting rights for major sporting events - including World Urban Orienteering Championships 2020, the European Badminton Championships 2017 and a part of the international golf tournament Challenge Tour
"The host must endeavor to show the very attractive infrastructure we have in the area. Outdoor sports like mountain biking are good for us. We have some of the country's most scenic areas with large forests and hundreds of kilometers of coastline. We are looking forward to welcoming the world's best mountain bikers," says Jens Ejner Christensen, chairman of the Triangle Region Denmark.