After more than a year of work behind the scenes, it’s official: The mountain bike world championships are coming back to Durango.
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the cycling world’s governing body, announced on Thursday in Rwanda at the UCI Congress that Durango will host the 2030 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. The 2030 world championships will mark the 40th anniversary of Durango hosting the first UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in 1990.
“It’s fantastic,” said bid architect and local organizing committee member Gaige Sippy. “… Now, you roll up your sleeves and you start the real work. It’s been a little bit of a dress rehearsal, to some extent.”
Eight hundred mountain bikers from 55 countries will come to Durango to compete at Purgatory Resort in cross-country Olympic team relays, cross-country Olympic junior races, cross-country Olympic U23 races, cross-country Olympic elite races, downhill junior and elite races, and E mountain bike races.
Durango is expected to host a 2029 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup event as part of the responsibility of hosting the world championships. Sippy said there’s a good chance Durango will also host a 2028 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup event.
The city of Durango has earmarked $200,000 in tourism money for the world championships; the UCI requires an applicant to host the world championships to put up a security amount of $188,000 to be held by the UCI until the world championships.
While $200,000 is a lot of money, it’ll pay off with the economic impact the event will have on Durango. City Prosperity Officer Mike French said in a previous Durango Herald article that the 2022 UCI Cyclocross World Champs in Fayetteville, Arkansas, had a direct economic impact of just under $10 million and generated $1 million in tax revenues.
More recently, the 2024 UCI BMX World Championships event in Rock Hill, South Carolina, had a $30 million direct economic impact and generated $2.6 million in tax revenues, he said.
“This is a momentous occasion for our community,” Durango Mayor Gilda Yazzie said in a news release. “The city is honored to be chosen by the UCI to host this historic anniversary year, and we are thrilled to partner with Durango Cycling Championships and Purgatory Resort.”
To celebrate the announcement, the city of Durango is hosting the Ride with the Champions bike parade on Friday. Durango’s champions Sepp Kuss, Todd Wells, Riley Amos, Bailey Cioppa, Leah Morozowhich, Zoey Waage, Cooper Wells and others will be leading the parade that starts at 5:30 p.m. next to Buckley Park.
While it’s a relief for the anticipation and finger-crossing to be over, Sippy’s confidence level in Durango’s chances of hosting has been high for a while. The main reason is the UCI first expressed interest in Durango hosting the 2030 world championships. The UCI reached out to USA Cycling President Brendan Quirk about Durango hosting. Quirk reached out to Christopher Blevins and Blevins reached out to Sippy.
Quirk then came to Durango to discuss the requirements and start the work on the bid in June 2024. Sippy then met with the mayor and city staff members to flesh out what it would look like to host the world championships.
Sippy led the way as Durango proceeded with the bid process and the bid was sent off in January.
The UCI then reviewed the bid for 60 days, and if it liked what it saw, it would send a contract. The UCI sent a contract in May. Sippy and the UCI went back and forth for about two months editing the contract of what the world championships would look like if Durango was selected. Sippy signed the sixth and final version of the contract before it was confirmed on Tuesday that Durango would be the host city.
Since Sippy signed the final version of the contract, he went to Switzerland at the end of August and early in September to witness the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships.
It was an opportunity for him to meet all the people with the UCI in Switzerland he has been e-mailing for the past year
While Sippy was on the ground in Switzerland, he got to look at how the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships were laid out. Although he has been involved with running cycling races for a lot of his life (he was the director of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic for over a decade), Sippy got a lot of ideas for how Durango should set up the world championships.
“The venue at Purgatory will be easier to manage than what they had in Switzerland,” he said.
He saw firsthand how big cycling is in Europe. He enjoyed seeing the amount of spectators there was at the world championships and how the fans were managed in Switzerland with all the television screens and the fan zones.
In the last few weeks, Sippy and the local organizing committee have been talking to television production crews and vetting them to see what company will be the best fit. He also knows the technology with broadcasting events is changing so fast that the capabilities of these companies will be drastically different even in 2028 when the first international event comes to Durango.
There’s also a large fundraising component to hosting the event, with Sippy and the local organizing committee working on raising money from grants, donations and long-term partnerships.
The courses for the world championships at Purgatory will also need to be built or repurposed. The plan is to repurpose the 2001 World Cup downhill course at Purgatory and build new cross-country Olympic and cross-country short track courses.
From 2028 to 2030, Durango should have a lot of mountain bikers competing at a world-class level. Christopher Blevins will be in his early 30s and should still be competing at a high level in cross-country mountain bike. Asa Vermette will be in his early 20s and should be one of the top men’s elite downhill riders. Riley Amos and Savilia Blunk should be in the prime of their careers in the elite cross-country categories. Riders like Bailey Cioppa, Ivan Sippy, Lauren Aggeler and others should also have the chance to represent Durango on the world stage.
“I’m such a firm believer in how good sport can be for kids,” Sippy said. “... We have a town that’s into cycling. Todd (Wells) and I ... hope this inspires these up-and-comers and the kids that are right behind that.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
