November 13, 2010 (Geneva, Switzerland) – Serge Arsenault, the organizer of the Grand Prix Cycliste ProTour races in Montreal and Quebec City, also bidding on the 2015 Road Worlds in Quebec City, is currently in Switzerland in discussions with the UCI. Arsenault is talking about putting together another ProTour of similar calibre to be held in Boston, Massachusetts in the first week of September 2012. “Nothing official has been done with Boston yet, but the riders and the teams are asking for this. Boston makes a perfect triangle together with Montreal and Quebec City. All of this could be televised during prime TV time in Europe,” said Arsenault in a phone interview from Geneva.

“We’re aiming for 2012 because 2011 is too soon to get together the necessary sponsors and TV coverage, etc. This has to be well organized and not jeopardized. After 2012, it might be too late because there is an explosion of requests for international cycling events coming from places like China and Russia.”

“We want to take advantage of the Labour Day weekend to organize a third [ProTour] race in northeastern North America. It’s all still a project at this point, but we are near to a decision point for going forward. I’m going to be on the telephone with USA Cycling when I get back to Montreal.”

Speaking about Quebec City’s bid for the 2015 Road World Championships, Arsenault said, “We have to be on the fast track here, the UCI will make their announcement about the winning bid in 10 months. [The Worlds leaves Europe once every five years and 2015 is the next year it is scheduled to do so]. And we have a strong bid with the full support of Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume. We will work with Gestev [organizer of the 2010 MTB World Championships at Mont Ste Anne] on this. But there’s not a minute to lose: next September is tomorrow morning.”

While Arsenault recently spoke to the media about the 2015 Road Worlds, he gave more precision today about expected competing bids. China, it now seems, will not be a likely contender. “I don’t want to speak against the competing bids, but it will be difficult to hold a bike race in 40 C weather,” said Arsenault, referring to Oman’s expected bid. Previous reports listed Canada, Columbia, China, India, and the U.S.A. as putting forward bids. Arsenault conceded that the U.S. bid could be strong. But he also spoke about the helicopters and motorcade used to televise the 2010 Canadian ProTour events, noting that it takes considerable expertise to get such things right.

“We will have a strong card in our hands,” said Arsenault. “We demonstrated in 2010 that we are physically able to hold a ProTour race and will have years of experience at it by 2015. The budget for this event [Road Worlds] is $20 million. But we’re not in the same position as European countries on this,” he explains. “Typically, the UCI allows organizers to retain revenues from TV rights within their own country, but the Canadian situation here is ‘not even close’ to that of France, Italy, or Belgium.” Arsenault underlined the importance of public [government] support for major cycling events in Canada.

Arsenault mentioned Charly Mottet a few times during the conversation. Mottet, a former French pro cyclist, is in charge of technical aspects of UCI races, such as the quality of the circuits. Mottet just returned from China where he was with UCI President Pat McQuaid. Arsenault has hired Mottet as a consultant, making him sports manager of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec-Montréal.

While in Europe, Arsenault has also been talking with media representatives such as Eurosport TV.

In other news, Arsenault mentioned the possibility of peripheral bike races in 2011. Possibly staged in cities such as Chicoutimi or Sherbrooke that are not far from Quebec City these events would be of a lesser calibre than the ProTour races. He is also looking at recreational cycling events that could be tacked on to the ProTour events to make a “10 day cycling festival.”