Covid Continues To Plague UK Calendar

Circuit Series now just single race as pandemic casts long shadow.

- James Shrubsall

Anyone who thought the British road and circuit calendar for 2021 would come off without a hitch “was very misguided”, said Canyon-dhbSunGod boss Tim Elverson, speaking in the wake of a spate of National Circuit Series cancellations.

British Cycling’s HSBC National Circuit Series was reduced to just one race – the Otley GP on June 30 – last week after British Cycling announced that the Barnsley round, which had been slated for 9 July, would be cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. It followed the cancellations of Sheffield (14 July), Colne (20 July) and the proposed Newark round, announced at the end of April.

The Circuit Series races were not the only ones called off: the southern round of the National Road Series, details of which were yet to be announced, was also cancelled. Details of the national championships for road and circuit remain unconfirmed.

Bob Varney, director of Drops-LeCol s/b Tempur echoed Elverson’s comments, saying “the writing was on the wall” after last year’s season.

The removal of the events from the calendar was met with anger on social media, with British Cycling coming under fire from those who felt the governing body should do more and had let them down, but the reaction from team managers was more pragmatic.

“We were anticipating it, because it’d be stupid not to,” Elverson said. “It’s pretty obvious it’s going to be difficult to organise… the legislation seems to change literally by the week.

“I think if you thought it was going to all turn out fine by April this year, you were very misguided,” he said. “There was no way it was ever going to fix itself that quickly.