UCI World Cup
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The UCI World Cup was a season-long competition for European professional racing cyclists, organised by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the governing body of competitive cycling. First run in 1989 (but the third in a series of similar initiatives dating back to 1948), the World Cup was superseded by the UCI ProTour in 2005.
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[edit] History
The origins of the World Cup (and therefore the ProTour) date back to the 1940s. After World War II, professional cycle racing was becoming increasingly international, and the organisers of the leading stage races and Classic one-day races decided to create a competition to determine who was the best professional road-racing cyclist. The UCI World Cup was the third manifestation of this effort.
[edit] Challenge Desgrange-Colombo
Named after Henri Desgrange and Emilio Colombo, two great sports journalists and organisers, the Challenge Desgrange-Colombo was organised by the newspapers L'Équipe, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Het Nieuwsblad-Sportwereld and Les Sports, and ran from 1948 until 1958.
Riders' performances in the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Milan-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix, Ronde van Vlaanderen, La Flèche Wallonne, Paris-Brussels, Paris-Tours and the Giro di Lombardia all counted towards the competition. The Tour of Switzerland was added in 1949, the Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1951, and the Vuelta a España was included in 1958.
The first winner was Belgian Briek Schotte (winner of the 1948 Ronde van Vlaanderen and also World road race champion that year). The 1949 version was won by the great Italian Fausto Coppi while the 1950 edition went to the Swiss Ferdi Kubler. Kubler won the Challenge Desgrange-Colombo three times (he added victories in 1952 and 1954) - a record equalled by Fred de Bruyne, who won the last three editions from 1956 to 1958.
[edit] Super Prestige Pernod International
Disagreements between the organisers then led to its demise, but another version of the competition was resurrected as the Super Prestige Pernod International in 1961. Points were awarded in a series of races and the winner of the overall points classification was given an award at the end of the season. This continued until 1987 when France introduced a ban on sports sponsorship by alcohol brands, including Pernod.
Like its predecessor, the Super Prestige Pernod International was won by some of the greatest names in professional cycle racing. The first winner, in 1961 was France's Jacques Anquetil (who later won it three more times); Belgian Eddy Merckx won it a record seven times (1969-1975 inclusive); Bernard Hinault equalled Anquetil's total with his fourth consecutive victory in 1982; while the final four years were dominated by Ireland: Seán Kelly won three times (1984-1986) and Stephen Roche won the final edition in 1987.
[edit] UCI World Cup
From 1988 until 2004, the competition was reborn as the UCI World Cup. The first years' competitions (up to 1991) were sponsored by Perrier, but fewer events counted towards the overall competition - which was essentially focused on one-day road races.
The first winner was Steven Rooks. The record number of wins was Paolo Bettini's three consecutive wins in 2002, 2003, and the last edition in 2004. Three riders won the competition twice: Maurizio Fondriest (1991 and 1993), Johan Museeuw (1995 and 1996) and Michele Bartoli (1997 and 1998).
As well as the individual UCI World Cup, there was also a parallel annual competition for the best professional cycling team, first run in 1986, and also now superseded by the UCI ProTour.
[edit] UCI World Rankings
Like professional tennis, professional cycling also produced world rankings. These were first instituted by the UCI in 1984.
Seán Kelly of Ireland was the first rider to be ranked world number 1 in March 1984 and was the year-end rankings leader for six years from 1984 to 1989 inclusive. The only other rider to come close to Kelly's dominance was Laurent Jalabert who topped the rankings four times, from 1995 to 1997 and again in 1999.
