CYCLING bosses will trial mixed races in Switzerland on Friday, with men and women going head to head in team sprint tests.

World governing body UCI president Brian Cookson will oversee the initiative with several young British riders likely to be involved.

Cookson said the UCI is exploring a host of ways to pit women and men against each other as part of the International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach’s “Agenda 2020” drive to revamp the movement.

“We spoke to Thomas about this at the end of last year, particularly perhaps about combining points scores or something from men’s and women’s events, but we’re actually talking about men and women on the field of play at the same time, as it were.

“There’s no real history of that in our sport. So what we’re going to do is run some tests to see if it would work, and how it would work, and what sort of events would lend themselves to that formula.

“It’s quite difficult to grasp as it would be for other sports, but let’s have a look at it and see if we can make it work.”

Bach put 40 reform proposals to the IOC in December as part of Agenda 2020, and all were passed at the Monaco summit, with the chief aims around reducing the cost of hosting an Olympic Games.

Promising cyclists from several countries will trial the mixed events in Switzerland this week, with all expected to be aged 23 or younger.

Cookson said he must hold other challenges in higher priority, but pledged to work hard to devise ways for men and women to compete together in future.

“My first priority at the moment is to defend what I have in Olympic terms, and then be looking at Olympic medals, participation figures and so on.”

by Our Sports Desk