The Tour of Guangxi, the final stop on this year’s UCI World Tour calendar, is to be broadcast live in at least 50 territories.
A total of 14 hours will be produced from the six-day event in the sub-region, including the first global visibility for the women’s race in the shape of a 26-minute highlights programme. The race begins on Thursday and will conclude on October 22.
In addition to territories covered by Velon’s distribution of live rights, there will also be live worldwide streaming offered by the Facebook and Twitter pages of the pro-road cycling marketing, media and technology company. Only Canada, China, Singapore and the US are geo-blocked.
Wanda Sports Group and its broadcast production division Evertop is working with CCTV-5, the sports channel of the Chinese state broadcaster, and H&A Media, the Lausanne-based host broadcast and distribution agency, on the production and distribution of the world feed.
Linear broadcasters and internet platforms to have secured live rights include: Fox Sports Asia, FloBikes (in Canada and the US), L’Équipe (in French overseas territories), TV2 (Denmark), Cyta (Cyprus), Action24 (Greece), Dubai Sports Channel, ELTA (Taiwan). TVB, the free-to-air broadcaster in Hong Kong, has acquired highlights rights.
All of the broadcasters have also acquired rights to the highlights programme featuring coverage from the women’s race.
The live world feed will start at 5am (GMT) and end at 6.45am on each race day (with the exception of October 21, when it will start at 6am and finish at 7.50am).
Guy Horne, managing director of H&A Media, said: “Tour of Guangxi is hosting the very best men’s and women’s cyclists in their final races of the season in the world’s biggest market. For a race in only its 3rd edition, it has the potential to bring the sport of competitive road cycling to a vast new audience.”
Star riders to take part in the men’s race include Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton Scott), Pascal Ackermann (BORAHansgrohe), Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates), John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Nikias Arndt (Team Sunweb). World road race champion Annemiek van Vleutin will represent the Michelton Scott team in the women’s race, with Coryn Rivera (Sunweb) and Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) among the other leading riders.