{"id":613610,"date":"2025-12-05T10:23:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T10:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/613610\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T10:23:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T10:23:18","slug":"well-aim-to-get-some-good-worldtour-riders-popular-london-night-time-criterium-to-return-in-2026-as-uci-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/613610\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We’ll aim to get some good WorldTour riders’ \u2013 popular London night-time criterium to return in 2026 as UCI event"},"content":{"rendered":"

The popular London Nocturne criterium event will return in 2026 with UCI<\/a> registration, after eight years off the British racing calendar.<\/p>\n

Formerly known as the Smithfield Nocturne<\/a>, with a list of winners that includes Geraint Thomas<\/a>, Ed Clancy<\/a>, Katie Archibald<\/a> and Hannah Barnes<\/a>, the event will return as the City of London Nocturne, and will be held over two days on 12-13 June 2026.<\/p>\n

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Its organiser, James Pope, who also managed the event when it ran from 2007 to 2018, hopes to bring a world-class field to the English capital, with television broadcasting to help \u201cboost\u201d the UK scene.<\/p>\n

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Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Pope explained the idea to revive the Nocturne initially came from the City of London, who approached him last year. \u201cThey had good memories of the Nocturne, and were very keen to bring a marquee cycling event back to the city,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new event, I wanted to be bigger and better, so I proposed two things to the City of London. I said, \u2018Can we have a new race circuit, higher profile, that goes through Bank junction?\u2019 So that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been working on, with a really iconic, city-skyline backdrop. You\u2019ve got St Paul\u2019s Cathedral at one end of the course, and the Bank of England and Royal Exchange at the other end. The other key development is to go to two days, so Friday and Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the two days, the closed road circuit will host a festival of events, including: a corporate challenge to engage those working locally, family-friendly races, fun races \u2013 \u201cpenny farthings, folding bikes\u201d \u2013 before Saturday evening\u2019s finale of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s elite races, both of which already appear on the UCI calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two elite races will carry \u2018CRTP – Pro Criterium\u2019 classification \u2013 the same as the Tour de France<\/a> Saitama and Singapore Criteriums \u2013 and, as such, do not award UCI ranking points. The reason for registering with the UCI, Pope explained, is that it allows him to invite WorldTour and ProTour teams to compete.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI want the field to be an international field, albeit predominantly domestic riders,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to cover travel expenses, maybe pay a few people appearance fees, but we\u2019re not going to have a massive budget to do that. I\u2019m hoping to get a handful of international WorldTour riders on the men\u2019s and women\u2019s side. Obviously, we don\u2019t know who those riders are yet, because people won\u2019t know their calendars until they\u2019ve been at the training camps in December. We\u2019ll aim to get some good WorldTour riders represented, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Riders\n<\/p>\n

Double Olympic track champion Katie Archibald won the Nocturne in 2015. <\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Pope also plans to televise the elite criteriums through a \u201ctraditional broadcaster\u201d, something he hopes will help provide visibility for teams\u2019 and riders\u2019 sponsors.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think there is an opportunity to bring in a new level of televised, major-city racing,\u201d he said. \u201cMy aim is that it just gives another boost to the UK racing scene and plays a part in this kind of renaissance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at it as a pyramid, in that middle-bottom, there is a thriving race scene, then you\u2019ve got the Tours of Britain<\/a> at the top, and I\u2019m hoping to try and create something in between the two that helps elevate the whole scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope\u2019s previous credentials count co-founding the track cycling Revolution Series<\/a>, and working as the race director of the now defunct UCI Track Champions League<\/a>. He said he holds \u201cvery, very fond memories\u201d of organising the former Nocturne series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d he said of the first edition in 2007 around Smithfield Market. \u201cRapha<\/a> and Condor<\/a> came up with the idea to do a race, approached me and Fran<\/a> [Millar, Pope\u2019s business partner at the time], and said, \u2018Hey, do you think you can organise it?\u2019 And we just went for it. I think about 4,000-5,000 people showed up, we won an award, and it grew from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event closed down in 2018 after the sports management company that organised it, Face Partnership, went into administration. \u201cThere was nothing wrong with the Nocturne, per se,\u201d Pope said. \u201cIt was more just collateral damage from what went wrong with the parent business. As an event itself, it was profitable, it was a great event.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan now is to make the City of London Nocturne an annual fixture, \u201clike it used to be,\u201d Pope continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can make the London event a success, then potentially we can look to try and replicate it in one or two other major cities in the UK. That\u2019s my goal. I\u2019m going to take it one step at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The popular London Nocturne criterium event will return in 2026 with UCI registration, after eight years off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-613610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115666473106008607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}