2023 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships Race Director Rowland Summerlin has good news for amateur riders worldwide. The UCI has recently approved increasing the world championship qualifying threshold from 20% to 25%.

Now, riders finishing in the top 25% of their age/gender category at UCI Gran Fondo World Series (UCI GFWS) road or time trial events will qualify to attend the 2023 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in Scotland next August.

Via an email to Gran Fondo Daily News Summerlin said, “The UCI GFWS series do not intend to make a headline announcement about the increase from 20% to 25%, [but] the qualifier events have been told that they can mention it in [their] documents…”

While a quick check of UCI GFWS qualifier events show a few are advertising the change (Cyprus, Istria, Cheaha and Lakeland), most are not, including the UCI GFWS. And the Tour of Cambridgeshire shows both thresholds – 25% time trial and 20% grand fondo.

Regardless, messaging for the new 25% threshold will hopefully be synchronized across all involved parties soon, as well as applied to the official list of Qualified Riders shown on the UCI GFWS website.

Previously, the UCI set the Gran Fondo World Championship qualifying threshold at 20% for safety reasons due to large field sizes and participants with varying skills. Now, with the 25% threshold upwards of 5000 amateur riders might qualify to attend the 2023 world championships in Scotland.

Photo Credit: UCI, Tour of Cambridgeshire

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