{"id":930708,"date":"2026-10-12T21:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930708\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T21:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:42:13","slug":"tour-de-france-the-giro-the-vuelta-respond-to-the-uci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930708\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France, the Giro & the Vuelta respond to the UCI"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top officials at the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a have responded to the UCI’s proposal to shorten major stage races in the future. Around the time of the World Championships in Montreal, the cycling federation presented a long list of ideas<\/a> for a new era in cycling. But when it comes to the Grand Tours, innovation seems to be proving complicated.The UCI wants to shorten cycling’s Grand Tours<\/p>\n

According to the UCI, shortening Grand Tours from 21 days to 16 is one of many ideas aimed at making cycling better and more enjoyable in the future.<\/p>\n

A Grand Tour lasting just over two weeks would mark a significant departure from the current three-week format. For now, this is explicitly a proposal from the consultation process and not a decision by the UCI. Below are the reactions.<\/p>\n

Tour de France – Christian Prudhomme<\/p>\n

The head of the Tour de France briefly commented on the idea during an interview with RMC Sport. He clearly doesn\u2019t feel that the proposal really applies to the Tour de France, the world\u2019s biggest cycling event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue concerns certain Grand Tours. The Tour de France lasts three weeks, including four weekends, and that\u2019s just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo<\/p>\n

\"christian-prudhomme\"\/<\/p>\n

Prudhomme dismissed the UCI’s radical proposals for the Tour de France<\/p>\n

Giro d’Italia – Luca GuercilenaFaced with Prudhomme\u2019s remarks, the new RCS Sport boss, Luca Guercilena, immediately dug in his heels in an interview with Domestique<\/a>. \u201cGrand Tours must remain Grand Tours; the Giro d\u2019Italia isn\u2019t going to change. All three Grand Tours must be the same length; there can be no differences,\u201d said the Italian.<\/p>\n

“We have to defend the 21-day Grand Tours,” Guercilena continued. \u201cCycling is about testing riders\u2019 endurance, and a three-week Grand Tour guarantees that the winner is a special talent.<\/p>\n

If we change that, we\u2019ll change the sport in a dramatic way. It\u2019s not worth it. Riders train very deliberately these days; they can handle two Grand Tours in a single year.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"luca-guercilena\"\/<\/p>\n

Luca Guercilena<\/p>\n

Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a – Javier Guill\u00e9n<\/p>\n

That leaves the Tour of Spain, and surprisingly, Javier Guill\u00e9n isn\u2019t keen on a Grand Tour lasting less than 21 days either. In recent years, the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a has increasingly been viewed as the last and least significant of the three.<\/p>\n

Does that make changes to the Spanish stage race the most likely scenario? Guill\u00e9n tells Marca<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

“We are not in favor of eliminating any days, not even one. It\u2019s true that the debate is ongoing, but at this time, it is not being discussed at any official or institutional level. We believe that the days honoring the great icons of cycling should remain untouched, because otherwise we would all be worse off. There\u2019s no point in doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"javier<\/p>\n

Javier Guill\u00e9n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top officials at the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a have responded to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,319660,225903,82,262636,301174],"class_list":["post-930708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-giro-ditalia-2027","tag-latest-cycling-news","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france-2026","tag-vuelta-a-espana-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}