The continental championships have long struggled for relevance. Can that change?
Reigning Oceania champ Katelyn Nicholson winning the Melbourne to Warrnambool earlier this year.
Con Chronis
Late last week the Oceania Cycling Confederation (OCC) announced that the Oceania Road Championships won’t be held in 2025. For a certain subset of riders in Australia, New Zealand, and the 12 other nations of the OCC, that’s a frustrating blow – one less opportunity to vie for a continental title, get noticed, or win UCI points. (The reigning champions, like Katelyn Nicholson pictured up top, are probably happier with the news – they get to keep wearing their jerseys until the event is next held).
So why aren’t the championships happening this year? Will they be back soon? And zooming out, why aren’t these continental championships as prestigious as they could be?
In an ideal world, winning an Oceania title would be more significant than an Australian or New Zealand national title. In reality, those national titles are regarded much more highly. That’s largely because the fields are stronger at those national championships – events that are held while the top riders are still in town, before heading to Europe for the year. The Oceania championships, by contrast, are normally run in March or April, long after the best riders have departed, meaning the startlists are normally populated by the best domestic racers from the region, rather than top pros.
Can all of that change? Can the Oceania champion’s jersey become more sought-after? And if so, how?
To answer all of these questions and more, Escape caught up with Tony Mitchell, president of the Oceania Cycling Confederation and a UCI Management Committee member. The following Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and fluency.
***
Matt de Neef: First up, I wonder if you can talk me through the process of looking for a host for this year’s Oceania Road Championships?
Tony Mitchell: As a confederation, we are required to run the championships every second year but we run them every year as we would like to improve the international competition and pathway in Oceania. So we’ve had a very good relationship with Brisbane, who’s hosted the championships for the last three years, and we were anticipating that that would also mean that it would be run again [there] this year.
Unfortunately, Brisbane wasn’t able to do that, and we then were working with AusCycling for a few other locations in Australia, and we came pretty close at the start of the year to identifying a few locations. Unfortunately, it just didn’t seem to work with the existing hosts within the timeframe that we needed. So, there’d been a lot of work, and we’re very appreciative of AusCycling who’s always a big supporter to help find hosts in Australia, but unfortunately, with Brisbane not going ahead, it put us on the back foot.
We were working very closely with the Lake Taupo Challenge [one of New Zealand’s most iconic gran fondos – ed.] for hosting it in November this year. But unfortunately, the decision now to look at 2026 rather than 2025 [doesn’t come] down to not finding a host – as New Zealand would have hosted – but it’s more about the timing for the riders and the timing for the pros to be able to come back from Europe, still be in good shape, and be able to really compete for that Oceania jersey.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope