According to the Union Cyclist International, both, women’s and men’s editions of the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic have been cancelled. This due to difficulties attracting financial sponsors. They hope to return again in 2018.
Unfortunately, the women’s race has been part of the World Tour calendar for this year. On the other hand, the men’s race has been one of the last remained one-day road races in the U.S.
Since the race was taken over by a new management following the 2012 editions, there were some changes on its formula. They changed from the Benjamin Franklin parkway to an uphill finished on Manayunk Wall.
The organizer’s claims
Race organizers said on their website that the city of Philadelphia has not ruled out of pursuing opportunities or a potential return next year. The managing director, Mr. Michael Di Berardnis also admitted: “Regrettably, even after extensive fundraising efforts, we were not able to find enough sponsors interested in covering the $1 million cost of the bike race to host it this year.”
He also added how tough has been for them to make this decision. He claimed that they have been moving forward with the plans for the race and necessary changes to the course for months now and they are just hoping for PICC to be able to return next year.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only race that has been cancelled this year. There have been several other races cancelled. Only in December, the UCI announced that the men’s and women’s editions of the Tour of Qatar were also cancelled. The reason: The lack of sponsors.
Even though several races have been cancelled in the US calendar recently, the USA Cycling’s vice president of National Events, Micah Rice, was trying to stay optimistic. She encouraged these kinds of events to not lose hope. She admitted to be sad when learning that the Philadelphia Cycling Classic wasn’t able to return this year. But she has highly hopes the city of Philadelphia will be able to bring this event back next year!
