This morning the UCI confirmed what appeared to be a lack of 4X on the official World Cup Calendar released yesterday.
| Following the publication of the 2012 Mountain Bike calendar, the UCI confirms that Four-cross events will form part of the programme of the 2012 UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships to be held in Leogang, Austria.
However, due to the high costs of constructing tracks and their impact on the environment, the UCI has decided to withdraw this speciality from the programme of events at UCI Mountain Bike World Cups from next season. -- UCI Official Release |
We can only wonder how many top athletes will bother to race and train 4X for World Championships only? There still appears to be a reasonable 4X circuit in Europe or at least parts of Europe, however 4X has been pretty much gone from North America for several years. All of the bigger North American events including Crankworx. the Sea Otter Classic, and the US Open have switched to a GS or Dual Slalom format for the past few seasons.
With Jared Graves committing full time to DH next year he won't really miss it, but how about athlete's such as this year's women's World Champion Anneke Beerten or US 4X racer Melissa Buhl?
Graves in one of the early rounds in Val di Sole this year. Graves has officially retired from 4X to concentrate on DH next season. Did he see this coming?
While 4X may have been taken out of the World Cup Circuit there is still a decent 4X scene in Europe with several National Series and also the Scwhalbe Euro 4X Series which winds up this weekend in the Czech town of Pec pod Snezkou. We're waiting to hear the results of a 4X Alliance meeting tomorrow morning, we'll post what we find out.
UK 4X racer Scott Beaumont had this to say on his facebook page
| 4X Alliance statement will be issued on Friday. It's not over yet #excitingtimes -- Scott Beaumont |
UPDATE - read what the Fourcross Alliance have to say in response.Check back, we'll have more info to come...
would have been an ideal news story but that would be a good idea wouldn't it? good form UCI...
I think, as the UCI cares little of the mountainbike community and our interests, that we should form our own union that focuses specifically on mountainbike and gravity events. A real union in which we get to vote for or against the rules set forth. It would hardly be different from what we're doing now, except we'd get to decide whether these crazy rules get passed. I'd rather that than a bunch of snobby roadies deciding what is allowed at mountainbike races.
is it me or do UCI just suck dick?
admin@uci.ch
And they deserve to charge for freecaster! It is a smart marketing move on their part, watching it is a privilege not a right, so why don't you guys stop crying and nut up and pay. I look forward to seeing UCI's next move!
Peace out losers
....and sorry bud, all them silly redbull/monster DJ comps and DH courses with all those people trampling the earth do just as much damage and waste just as many resources....if not more.
Our sport needs to embrace ALL forms of riding a bike.
Mountain Biking NEEDs a new governing body.
Firstly... Ecosystems are dying every day, whether the human race is here or not, things die, its a part of life. As is creation, where one ecosystem dies, it leaves a place for another to emerge. That's the circle of life. It'd happen if we were here or not. We are but a tiny spec of dust in the universe, what we do, doesn't really matter, we'll be gone within the next few hundred thousand years. As well as that, since when did the UCI care about the environment? And why mountain biking? Do they not care about the hundreds of vehicles that follow along behind the road cyclists in the UCI world tour? Or are they just plain arrogant f*cks?
Secondly... Forest destruction...? Are you serious? If you want to make a difference, go talk to the thousands of companies in Malaysia and South America that demolish millions of year old rain forests by the thousands of hectares per day so that you can wipe your ass after taking a crap.
Thirdly... The UCI are to Mountain Biking as the USA is to Freedom. Sure, they might have nothing but good intentions, but hell are their actions completely obscured by the power that controls it. The only thing the UCI are doing by charging freecaster for filming, is losing out themselves, because A. They get no advertising through the thousands upon thousands of viewers that watch, B. They appear as total dickwads to everyone else because they charge for something they do not physically 'own' or 'have', and C. in doing so, they completely discredit their own sport and actually restrict the progression of the sport.
Saying the UCI is helping mountain biking progress, is like saying that Firing a Nuclear warhead would end the war in Iraq, sure, it may actually end the war, but why the f*ck would you do it when they are so many less harmful and out-right stupid ways to do it?
UCI
THere are so many people angry with your forcing Freecaster out and eliminating 4X.
Please read the comments on this link.
www.pinkbike.com/news/UCI-pulls-4X-from-World-Cup-Circuit.html
Note this page in support of having freecaster cover uci dh has over 2000 members
www.facebook.com/pages/Support-for-2012-UCI-DHmtb-on-FreecasterTV/279746628706654?ref=pb&sk=wall
UCI is very unpopular right now, there are people making noises about creating their own governing body. Will the UCI begin to listen to
the people who care a bout mountain biking- people who who keep you in business, or will the UCI ignore itself out of existence?
whenever something has an environmental impact, it's best to at least look at making that something more sustainable before pulling the plug...
if trees are gonna go, then i'd rather have it be for MTB than for stupid ass malls, gas stations and too many roads and highways... a lot trails people ride have trees that were cut down to make the trail better...
www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/Press-Release-The-Fourcross-Alliance-Announces-Intent-to-Create-a-2012-4X-World-Series,392
theres hundreds of comments here pissed about the lack of world cup 4X an only a FEW like yours so errrr go figure
and
roumers are that the Euro series is gonna be the 2012 world cup
Remember the U in UCI stands for UNION... and its a union made up of actual professional racers and is meant to represent the PROFESSIONAL level competition and decide on the events/rules for that level of racer. Its decisions are not meant to be popular for people who sit behing a tv screen or computer monitor spouting off like they're experts and know what's best for professional athletes. You're pretty much all behaving like the hockey fans who scream at the tv when the coach benches their favourite player, or pulls a goalie who's let in 5 goals in the first period of the game.
Maybe they can look at bringing that back again with some more exciting tracks. Gated racing is def a better overall for the spectator both biker and non biker.
Just a thought.
This decision reeks of lame UCI/NORBA BS from the mid 1990's.
*now onto the seperate sisuation with freecaster*.
the uci are the ones who pay for all the tv cameras and set up all the live coverage, they then sell the rights to the tv stations etc that want to show the event, like freecaster. freecaster had a 4 year deal with the UCI to show the live coverage which ended at the end of this season. UCI upped their price to renew the contract and freecaster couldnt afford it so they no longer have the right to show the events. two completly different things that just happened to surface at the same time. That said it looks like the UCI are really trying their best to ruin world mountain biking.
to reitterate *******rocky roads nothing to do with freecaster**********
Just saying if they knew what was good for them they would have stuck with freecaster despite the fact that a bartender happens to have alot of money.
You never know, they might be as good as the biscuits, none of us are in a position to judge as of now but I don't think I'll be watching the world cup 2012
I threw up a little.
Edit: Maybe didn't see it happening this year, but it was unsustainable, or so they claimed.
Just playing devil's advocate here, but to speak to the "Environmental Impact" issue: XC Eliminator has been held mostly on pavement and on portions of the existing XC track, so no berms, doubles, or other features need to to be built for that event.
It's time the Gravity Scene spilt from the UCI - Downhill is never going to be an Olympic Event so who gives a f#ck about IOC affiliation !
OR, Make 4X an entirely new separate discipline governed by a new body other than UCI. Big Brother ended on CH 4. Sadly, the A-Holes at channel 5 bought the rights... My point is, 4X CAN live on. (and Should)
Are the UCI funded by the Government or Law enforcement agencies or anything? Only reason I ask, is do we really have to put up with their BS?
The people have already posted there.
Environmental concerns are BS, time to dump the UCI and get some proper support for gravity racing. 4x would be great for X-Games perhaps?
Indeed there is a lot of explanations which can appear here, but the fact that Four Cross has been pulled from WC is not a surprise:
- We know since the end of Dual Slalom that there is a furious competition between this new discipline and BMX, however evolution of 4X has been the worst: in World Cup and also World Champ (recording Canberra 2009), 4X seems more and more to BMX in relation with the tracks, what's the interest? Sometimes to give advantages for certain riders, sometimes to reduce costs.
- In the same way, 4X is not as popular as we want that it would be, demonstration is too linked with the quality of tracks (then Mont Saint Anne 2010 was a great success so), competition is not exceptional for the non-mountainbiker, finaly a great sprint as we find in BMX is much more interesting, or DHI runs onre day later (above all if 4X try to be closed to BMX as I say before).
- Another Sign was the decrease in a lot of country (thanks the federations) in organisation of events concerning this sport, besides national champ: France is the best example & that is a hard debate since 2 years.
- Finally, the argument that everybody like to use - and this argument is of course is right - problems of money and financial interests.
I regret the past time, but some problems were founded I'm sorry, It's not the way to imagine that 4X will begin an olympic sport, and that's normal in conclusion.
Don't blame me anyone for being offtopic in that manner, this comment board went to sht after first 10 comments...
Anneke Beerten has retired from 4x too if I'm not mistaken, she's racing XC only next year.
DS ARE cheaper to construct, are less permanent, require less dirt. Two berms that only need to hold one rider are MUCH smaller than one berm that is big enough to hold four riders. A berm whose riding surface is eight feet wide uses three to four times as much dirt as a berm that is four feet wide.
4X was a good event for the TV watching numpties, who only have to know that the first person over the line is the winner. I don't think UCI got the viewing audiences they hoped for.
Check the names on the 4X podiums over the past few years - you see the same names over and over again. That means there really was little competition (in terms of competitors, it was great to watch). Look at the podiums of DH over the past few years - there is a much bigger spread and there were ten times as many competitors.
I heard a while ago that UCI was going to drop 4X, and if a nobody like me heard it, then I'm sure that Jared Graves knew about it.
Choosing locations like Champery for Worlds which was more than a desaster, then banning Dirt.tv at Worlds and now they canceled 4x. What will be coming next ?
and the valley champery is situated in is not really good for lots of people. and the sport need spectators. I think Leogang is going to be really good because there's so much space and the organisation is really professional.
Maybe Champery was good to watch but seriously.. beeing there was not nice at all.
Loads for sports have 2 divisions and the Negative environmental impact?
That's just bull shit. You just have to look at moto x riders ripping fields to bits to know that in not true.
Fort William spent money upgrading the 4X track for this year. Now its more or less useless
NOT HAPPY (not with you)
here is the only mail adress you can send your thoughts about it...
admin@uci.ch
Free Caster gone and now this
Anyway, FMBA can be the answer.
Hell the Tour de France suffered massively this year and was rife with rumours and speculation of corruption and breakaway tournaments.
At Champery this year when all the rockyroads bs kicked off, the UCI delegate incharge of mtb was unavailable for comment because she was at her wedding... during the biggest event of the year. She lives very close to Champery too.
She made a comment before Champery saying that the UCI struggled to promote mtb because the public does not understand it!
:0
hello RED BULL world cup 4X
(or any other major action sports company with an interest in taking up where the UCI left off, my using of red bull was just an example)
there WILL be a 2012 4X world series, just run by somebody else, an it will probably be BETTER
now say the 4x ruin the natural landscape!
CUACK! CUACK!! why not go to the bitch gave birth mother?!
From Argentina!!! UCI why not go to the bitch gave birth mother?!
plenty of national 4X all over europe and the euro cup, 4X is getting bigger every year here in the U.K
www.euro4xseries.com/4x-alliance