India to Host UCI Road World Championships for First Time in 2032

The International Cycling Union has awarded the Road World Championships 2032 to the city of Pune, India, marking the first time that the prestigious global cycling event will be staged in that country.

The hosting rights announcement was made by the UCI Management Committee at the 195th UCI Congress in Montreal, Canada.

Located southwest of Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra, Pune was competing with Groningen, the Netherlands, and the Drenthe region of the the same country to host the 2032 Road Worlds, and the 105th edition of the event, despite submitting a late bid after the initial December 31 deadline had passed.

However, in an unusual step, UCI President David Lappartient explained that, such was the caliber of both bids from India and the Netherlands, the rival bid from Groningen and the Drenthe region was awarded the 2034 Championships even before the applications deadline had closed.

India will become only the fourth Asian country to host the UCI Road World Championships after Japan (Utsunomiya) in 1990, Qatar (Doha) in 2016 and United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi), which will stage the 2028 edition.

Growing Cycling in India

In January this year, however, Pune hosted India’s first UCI stage race, the men’s Class 2.2 Bajaj Pune Grand Tour. The inaugural Pune Grand Tour featured a 437km course including a prologue and four stages across Pune district.

The 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, featured 734 riders representing 113 countries, and the 2026 edition is currently taking place in Montreal. Next year’s competition will take place in the Haute-Savoie region of France.

Balewadi Stadium and the Pune University circuit have been proposed as venues for the 2032 Championships, and have been approved by the UCI.

Held on an annual basis, the UCI Road World Championships bring together the world’s elite road cyclists who represent their own national teams, as opposed to trade teams in other competitions like the Tour de France. In the Road Worlds, cyclists race for world titles and iconic rainbow jerseys on behalf of their countries.