The city of Pune, India, has won its bid to host the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in 2032, while the 2034 Road and Para Cycling Road World Championships have been awarded to the Netherlands.
The results were announced at the UCI Congress in Montreal, Canada, which confirmed that India will be the first nation in Asia, excluding the Middle East, to stage the event.
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Bidding for the 2032 event was put forward by the Maharashtra local government and the country’s cycling federation (the CFI), with federal government support.
Pune beat the Dutch provinces of Groningen and Drenthe, which will jointly host the 2034 edition of the event, and its supporting para-cycling world championships.
The Netherlands, a cycling hotbed, has hosted the UCI road world championships on no fewer than eight occasions, most recently in Valkenburg (the most recent of five times for the city) in 2013.
Colombia and Mexico were eliminated in prior bidding rounds.
Back in January, Pune hosted India’s first-ever UCI stage race, the Bajaj Pune Grand Tour, on the continental UCI Asia Tour, the staging of which was likely key to the success of the bid.
CFI secretary general Maninder Pal Singh said: “For Indian cycling, this is an opportunity to move from participation to performance and from hosting international races to becoming a part of cycling's global conversation.
"The years leading to 2032 will be about creating stronger pathways for our athletes, coaches and technical officials, bringing international expertise into India and giving our riders greater exposure to the highest standards of the sport. The Cycling Federation of India is committed to using this opportunity to build an ecosystem that can compete with the best in the world.”
In 2025, the championships went to Africa for the first time, taking place in Kigali, Rwanda. That event, and the move to bring Pune into the fold, alongside other future geographies such as Abu Dhabi, UAE (which will host in 2028), suggests the UCI is increasingly looking to new territories for hosting in order to further grow the professional reach of the sport.
The 2026 UCI Road World Championships are currently taking place in Montreal, with a new road race champion to be crowned thanks to the absence of current road champion Tadej Pogacar, who was injured in the recent Vuelta a España, while time trial champion Remco Evenepoel will seek to retain his crown.
This is the latest global championship to confirm an event in India over the coming years as the country seeks to ramp up its hosting commitments on the global stage to support its 2036 Olympic Games ambitions.
The 2030 Commonwealth Games will take place in Ahmedabad, India, and the city, which is also bidding to host the 2038 Asian Games, is one of a number of cities ramping up activity.
The country is looking to stage as many as 65 events by 2028, having held 36 such international competitions in 15 cities since the beginning of 2025.
Indian Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said earlier this month: “As we prepare to host CWG 2030, and bid for the Olympics 2036, the experience gained from hosting events in 15 cities will help us strengthen our capabilities further."
