The Union Cycliste International has issued a press release announcing the cancellation of the Tour of Qatar and the Ladies Tour of Qatar. The Tour of Qatar was set to enter the World Tour this year but that ultimately won’t happen. For the moment, ASO who is the organizer of the event and in charge of communication, has not yet issued a statement.

The statement from the UCI is very short:

”The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has today received notice of the cancellation of both the Tour of Qatar and Ladies Tour of Qatar. It is understood the decision follows difficulty attracting sponsor financial support,” the federation writes.

The Tour of Qatar was born in 2002 at the request of the local authorities and under the impetus of Eddy Merckx who worked together with Amaury Sport Organization, the organizer of the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and La Vuelta among others, to bring on the event. It was the first race of this level in the Persian Gulf. A little later, the balle started to roll with the creation of the Tour of Oman in 2010, also organized by ASO, and then the Dubai Tour in 2014, organized by RCS (organizer of the Giro d'Italia). Finally, the last race the Abu Dhabi Tour, also organized by RCS, was added to the calendar in 2015. The latter took place at the end of the season while the former three took place in February.

From 2017, both the Tour of Qatar and the Abu Dhabi Tour were set to join the WorldTour and both were scheduled for February. The plan was to have four consecutive races in the Middle East, startwing with Dubau and then heading to Qatar, Oman and finally Abu Dhabi. Ultimately, that series will only consist of three races.

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The announcement of the cancellation of the Tour of Qatar is doubly surprising because the event had just obtained World Tour status and there have never been any reports about an uncertain future. Furthermoe, Qatar has just hosted the very expensive World Championships.