British scene mourns Tour of Britain cancellation

Stage race postponed until 2021, but what will the implications be on British cycling?

- Chris Marshall-Bell

Elite racing in the United Kingdom has been dealt a further blow with the news that the Tour of Britain has been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The UK’s premier stage race was set to take place between 6-13 September, but four months before its staging, organiser SweetSpot has announced the race will not take place this calendar year.

Instead, the eight-stage tour of the country will now return in September 2021 with the international peloton riding the same route from Penzance to Aberdeen.

“Since the start of March we have been in weekly calls with British Cycling, the race’s stakeholders and venue holders and initially we were bullish about our chances,” Peter Hodges, PR and marketing director at SweetSpot, told Cycling Weekly.

“But at the end of April the discussion turned from ‘can we do it?’ to ‘should we do it?’. Cornwall [authorities], for example, have been building up to this for four years but if no one is stood at the side of the road, why would they bother?

“It would be the exact opposite of what cycle racing is about: being a free-to-attend event. In the UK, the racing is very much about crowds, engagement and inspiration, and if we have to have people 100 metres away from the podium, no school activities, no public around the buses, what’s the point?

“Cycling, wherever you are in the world, is all about showing the place off and encouraging people, but we could have had a situation where regions are saying ‘you can come, but come in 12 months’. That’s the wrong message.”

He added: “The government’s latest roadmap doesn’t get very far in terms of mass participation events, so we decided there was no need to prolong the decision.”