Maraton Franja in Slovenia has a very long tradition going back to 1982 when the first edition was held in the capital city of Ljubljana. The 2020 event will be held on the 6th of September and will have a lot of strict measurements in place to guarantee safety in these difficult Corona-times. It will be the first UCI Gran Fondo World Series qualifier since the Bathurst Cycling Classic in March.

The 2020 UCI Gran Fondo World Series season has been a difficult one and suffers like most sports events from the Corona-virus. Almost all events have been cancelled and also the World Championships in Vancouver have been cancelled some weeks ago. The UCI Gran Fondo World Championships will not be held in 2020 and will be postponed to 2021 in Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

The UCI have decided to postpone all races that were scheduled in the UCI Gran Fondo World Series in June to a period after the 1st of July.

The Japanese qualifier in Niseko on the Hokkaido north island was scheduled to take place in June this year instead of their traditional date in July due to the Olympics, but with the Corona virus, it will now be rescheduled to 29-30 August.

It doesn’t always have to be negative news that we post in these Corona-times. Reigning world champion Maxim Pirard who won his world title in the men 19-34 age group last year in a 8-men break sprint at the end of the 2019 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in Poznan wanted to do something special this past weekend to honour the Tour of Flanders who couldn’t take place on their scheduled date this Sunday and to cope with a period without racing.

The UCI has decided that all UCI events who were still scheduled before the 1st of June have to be cancelled or postponed to a later date in the season due to the Covid-19 virus.