No Coupe de France or World Cup rounds for the 2024-2025 season. For the first time in several years, Normandy is not hosting a major cyclo-cross event this season. This is normal and it won’t last. Explanations.
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Two World Cup rounds (2022 and 2023) and the decisive French Cup meeting (2023) in Flamanville, the French championship (2023) and two French Cup rounds (2021) in Bagnoles-de-l ‘Orne, Normandy had taken a liking to major cyclo-cross events in recent years.
However, this season, nothing on the program, apart from the usual meetings on the regional calendar. The French Cycling Federation, in its desire to distribute the organizations according to the regions, opted for events in Nommay (Doubs), Pierric (Loire Atlantique), Troyes (Aube) and La Ferté Bernard (Sarthe). As for the only French round on the World Cup calendar, it will take place in Besançon on December 29.
In demand over the last two years, the Flamanville organization needed to breathe. “We needed time to digest because stringing together a World Cup and two French Cup rounds in one week, no organizer had ever done that before, and it doesn’t need to be done againexplains Stéphane Leclère, president of the organizing association. Fortunately we had strong backs because it was complicated financially”.
We can’t have big events every year, these are very big organizations.
Stéphane Leclère, president of the Flamanville Cyclo-cross organizing association
Rather than burning its wings with a major annual meeting, the Flamanville team is counting on an event every two years. “Firstly, returning to the burden every year would be burdensome for our partners. Two, we want to prepare things as best as possible, whether it is qualitative“, adds the president, who has just learned that his candidacy to once again host the French round of the World Cup had been selected for 2025.
If the organization of the World Cup round had been a great success in 2022, the 2023 meeting was more complex due to terrible weather.
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© DAVID STOCKMAN / MAXPPP
In the meantime, the organizers are not twiddling their thumbs. They are organizing this Sunday, November 17 in Valognes the last round of the Eric Duchemin Assurance Challenge (ex-RMPro Cross), the final stage of a triptych in the Cotentin. At the end of January, several volunteers will go to Liévin, in the North, to lend a hand to the organizers of the world championship. Mickaël Lemardelé, via his company LSO, will also be mobilized. Proof of the influence of the Manchois and the quality of their work for several years.
In its desire to offer a great meeting every two years, the Cotentin association is also working on the possibility of a French championship and dreams of a European or world championship.
While waiting for an international race to be obtained, the French cyclo-cross Cup could return to Normandy, but “not in Bagnoles-de-l’Orne immediatelycomments Bernard Sineux, recently re-elected at the head of the Normandy Cycling League. The organizing team is “a little on standby” according to his words.
For 2025, Ouistreham is a candidate for the very first time to host a Coupe de France weekend. “The Riva Bella Cross has offered a very good organization for three years, we supported its candidacy for next season“, explains the regional leader. Already included in the UCI class 2 calendar this year, the coastal city offers an additional destination in a world of cyclo-cross which continues to develop in the region.
