04.06.2013 Official Site
Russia, One-day Road Race
UCI 1.2
With most of the Elite Women keeping themselves busy at Chongming Island and Gooik-Geraardsbergen, the Grand Prix of Maykop was given over entirely to riders from the ex-Soviet nations when it was held for the first time on the 13th of May in 2012: out of the ten riders first over the line, nine were Russian (including all the first seven); all the other riders to take part were either Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian or Lithuanian. This led to the race losing its UCI points due to a failure to satisfy Article 2.1.003 in the UCI rules, "To be able to be registered on the international calendar, a race must guarantee the participation of at least 5 foreign teams. A mixed team is regarded as a foreign team if the majority of its riders are of foreign nationality."
The race takes place some three weeks later in early June this year, which probably had the organisers hoping for a more international field - unfortunately, it now clashes with the Emakumeen Saria which, as important preparation for the Emakumeen Bira in addition to being an important and prestigious race in its own right, is likely to attract more riders than Maykop can, possibly leaving the Russian race in the same situation. With so many races having vanished forever in the last couple of years it'd be a great pity if this one did the same after only two years.
However, the organisers might find that their event generated a lot more interest if they made some information available now that there's less than a month to go until it takes place. Over an hour spent on Google has turned up nothing other than the results from last year - no map, news or anything at all, even on the official website (which would be of much more use to a great many cycling fans in this world if the English version didn't have such limited information and functionality, incidentally).
Anyway, I'll add any details I can find here when (and if) I find them.
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