Eliminator was launched by the UCI as a great hope to replace the popular fourcross races. Then almost silently dropped again after a short time and only kept alive in the form of the World Championships. And now - in the midst of preparations for the new season - a world tour is being conjured out of a hat. The ones being cheated are the former Eliminator athletes. The case is a perfect example of how little sensitivity there is in the decision-making positions at the World Cycling Union.

A prime example of these cheats is the world champion in cross-country eliminator. After announcing that he would be spinning off the Eliminator and no longer organizing races, Daniel Federspiel decided to change his entire training and focus fully on the Cross Country Map - due to a lack of Eliminator opportunities. Nicolas Siegenthaler, the coach behind Nino Schurter, has replaced Federspiel. In his eliminator days, Federspiel was a powerhouse who put out incredible watts on the pedals. For the cross country discipline, he simply carries too much unnecessary weight with this specialization. Riding at the front in both disciplines became increasingly difficult - hence Federspiel's decision to change his entire training.

The tricky thing is that world champion Federspiel found out about the relaunch of "his" discipline via Facebook. The athletes were not contacted, especially as the decision came rather late. The teams have already been put together and the training and race plans for the year have been drawn up. World champion Linda Indergand also found out about the world federation's plans via the UCI website and her coach. The calendar does not fit into her own plans at all. Some of the races will take place at the same time as important cross-country competitions, and the same applies to the European Championships.

There will probably only be a few teams and riders who can reschedule at such short notice and put together a budget. In addition, the events have been outsourced to an external organizer. The races will take place all over the world, which is hardly financially viable for the eliminator teams and specialized individual riders - but they have long and inevitably turned their backs on the discipline anyway.The UCI sells the races as highly interesting for the cities. There's no doubt about it: this is the way to bring mountain biking to the cities and attract larger crowds of spectators. The cross-country skiers have been demonstrating this for years. There is another solution: luring riders with attractive entry fees. But this requires strong sponsors. And these only come if there is sufficient spectator interest. In turn, they will only come to the races if the starting fields are high-caliber. This raises the familiar question: which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Obviously, the UCI has literally laid an egg for itself with its "chicken and egg" strategy in the Eliminator discipline. Perhaps this egg will turn into a chicken after all. Let's hope so, it would be good for mountain biking and the athletes. But the experience of the last few years with the UCI paints a different picture.