UCI president Brian Cookson said it would be ‘unthinkable’ for track cycling not to feature in the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Durban, South Africa.
Organisers of the games omitted the sport from its winning bid, with the costs of building a velodrome the likely reason.
Track cycling has featured in every Commonwealth Games since 1930 and Cookson claims the velodrome doesn’t need to have a roof to host the Games, meaning an existing outdoor track in Pietermaritzburg – 80kms from Durban – could be considered for the event.
“A Commonwealth Games without track cycling is unthinkable, every organiser in recent memory has included track cycling and it would be a disaster, a tragedy, to have a Commonwealth Games without it,” he said in an interview with insidethegames.biz.
“They [Durban] have been looking at the costings of the London velodrome, but they don’t need to have as expensive a velodrome.
“Maybe they don’t need to have an indoor velodrome as the climate in that part of the world is quite consistent, it’s one of the things we can look at.
“People forget it is not that long ago that track cycling was almost always outdoors.”
The Commonwealth Games Federation has stressed that any solution needs to be sustainable, but chief executive David Grevemberg says ‘nothing is off the table’ when it comes to finding a host venue for track cycling.
