India gets the 2032 Road Worlds: Can cycling crack the cricket-obsessed nation?

There had been plenty of speculation in recent months, and now it’s official.

The latest UCI Congress in Montreal has confirmed the 2032 UCI Road World Championships will be held in Pune, India – which of course is a rather big deal in more ways than one.

Pune sensationally beat off a rival bid from the far more cycling-oriented Dutch regions of Groningen and Drenthe who were instead awarded the 2034 event.

In announcing the decision UCI president David Lappartient diplomatically described both bids as ‘very, very solid’ in an understandable retort to the eye rolling of cycling traditionalists everywhere.

But back to India. As every Australian knows, the world’s most populous country is famous for its love of cricket, not bikes.

This isn’t just anecdotal. The nation of 1.48 billion has never produced a WorldTour rider, male or female. The closest it has come to the Tour de France is 19-year-old Harshita Jakhar, one of eight riders from the UCI World Cycling Talent Programme who appeared at the ceremonial start of Stage 2 of this year’s Tour de France Femmes in Aigle, Switzerland, home of the UCI no less.

Jakhar is no mug, she rode the junior women’s time trial (39th) and road race (56th) events at last year’s Worlds Championships in Rwanda, but she’s absent in Montreal.

In the men, 40-year-old Naveen John is the only Indian to have even been listed on a UCI Continental team (State of Matter/MAAP here in Australia back in 2016 if you’re wondering).

He still leads India’s national squad, but he isn’t racing in Canada either. In fact, no Indian riders are.

At this year’s inaugural five-stage Bajaj Pune Grand Tour, India had nine starters and none were able to finish inside the top 100 on the general classification won by New Zealand’s Luke Mudgway.

1.48 billion pairs of eyeballs

Potential is everything in today’s commercially minded sporting landscape and the UCI is clearly eyeing the exponential growth opportunity of having almost 1.5 billion pairs of eyeballs on the sport.

Plainly it doesn’t need cycling to become the ‘next cricket.’ Even a very modest uplift in participation and investment across India would repay the faith of the UCI handsomely for years to come.

The decision to award the 2032 Road World Championships to Pune is also entirely consistent with the UCI’s ongoing globalisation strategy and the UCI 2030 Agenda which actively looks beyond the sport’s traditional heartlands.

Think Rwanda in 2025, Abu Dhabi in 2028 and the Japanese bid that’s highly favoured to secure the UCI ‘Super’ World Championships in 2035.

Rwanda already boasted a genuine cycling culture having hosted the Tour du Rwanda for 16 years before staging the Worlds in 2025. At a sporting level Qatar (2016) and the UAE (2028) are less obvious cycling choices, but of course they bring considerable resources and powerful influence at WorldTour level.

India is a different proposition again, a huge market with almost no road racing history whatsoever.

Why Pune?

Pune is a city of more than six million in Maharashtra, roughly 150 kilometres to the south-east of Mumbai. It sits at the foothills of the Sahyadri Mountains which will likely offer some interesting course options come 2032.

The real catalyst for the decision was the first-ever Bajaj Pune Grand Tour held in January of this year. An estimated 2.5 million people lined the roadside over the five days, though how many were there for the racing is somewhat debatable.

Regardless, UCI Director General Amina Lanaya attended the final stage and immediately began talking about a future World Championships in the region.

Since then, the pace has been extraordinary. The Pune Grand Tour will be upgraded to UCI 2.1 status in 2027 and extended to six stages, with reports of more than 400 kilometres of new ‘cycling-friendly’ roads underway in the region thanks to an investment of roughly A$100 million.

The plan is already to elevate the Tour to UCI ProSeries level by 2028, just one step below the UCI WorldTour.

Olympic ambitions

Scratching beneath the surface of India’s sudden and growing interest in cycling reveals the nation’s wider Olympic ambitions.

Ahmedabad is among the favourites to host the 2036 Olympic Games and has already been confirmed as host for the 2030 Commonwealth Games.

Major international cycling events provide useful ammunition for India’s pitch to the IOC and its members, something Cycling Federation of India Secretary General Maninder Pal Singh has been quite open about.

“The Pune Grand Tour has changed how we view cycling in this country,” Singh said at an urban mobility conference in Mumbai back in April, adding that the Pune Grand Tour was as much about showing the type of global events India can organise and broadcast as it is about professional cycling.

He also said his Federation’s aim was to host the Road Worlds before 2036, something it has now comfortably achieved.

IPL on wheels

Another curious development surrounds something known as the Indian Cycling League. Announced earlier this year, the government-backed concept sits outside UCI control and features eight state-based cycling teams in the mould of the outrageously popular IPL franchise cricket competition.

Each team would comprise 10 riders including two international slots, the rest would be local Indian riders.

The first round of the ICL was to be held in Ahmedabad in mid-November, however there are reports the initiative has stalled for now at least. Nevertheless, it’s something to keep an eye on.

A UCI gamble with massive upside

Awarding cycling’s biggest annual event to a country with just one low-level UCI stage race to its name and no professional riders is a risk and the UCI knows it.

The nation’s lack of cycling history is counterbalanced by virtually unlimited growth potential. It’s a gamble the UCI has decided is worth taking.

Speaking in Montreal UCI President David Lappartient confidently declared India ‘a country where our sport has a bright future’. Six years from now we’ll find out just how bright.

How well can a country obsessed with cricket and yet to produce a single WorldTour rider host the best cyclists in the world? How many athletes from India will feature in the races for the rainbow jerseys?

But, perhaps most importantly of all, how many everyday Indians will even care that it’s happening?