T&T cy­clist Nicholas Paul faces a bumper end to the 2021 cal­en­dar year as he has qual­i­fied for the in­au­gur­al edi­tion of the Union Cy­cliste In­ter­na­tionale (UCI) Track Cham­pi­ons League, part of a wider re­form of the UCI's track cy­cling cal­en­dar of events.

Tak­ing place over the course of five Sat­ur­days from the be­gin­ning of No­vem­ber in­to ear­ly De­cem­ber, with stops in four Eu­ro­pean cities, the UCI Track Cham­pi­ons League will im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low the 2021 UCI Track Cy­cling World Cham­pi­onships in Roubaix France from Oc­to­ber 20-24. The lat­ter has been shift­ed from its pre­vi­ous spot of be­tween Feb­ru­ary and April in the UCI cal­en­dar al­so as part of the new UCI cal­en­dar.

Paul, the num­ber one ranked sprint rid­er in the world ac­cord­ing to the UCI's rank­ings as at Sep­tem­ber 14 and a world record-hold­er in the men's Fly­ing 200m, leads the list of cy­clists who have earned an au­to­mat­ic spot at the UCI Track Cham­pi­ons League by virtue of their world rank­ing.

Oth­er rid­ers will qual­i­fy to the Cham­pi­ons League through their per­for­mance at the World Cham­pi­onships, while more will be cho­sen from each host coun­try and in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

Af­ter con­clud­ing his World Cham­pi­onships cam­paign in France, Paul is ex­pect­ed to put his wheel on the line for the first leg of the Cham­pi­ons League in Mal­lor­ca, Spain on No­vem­ber 6. The event then moves to Pan­evezys, Lithua­nia on No­vem­ber 27, two events in Lon­don on De­cem­ber 3 and 4 and then the fi­nal event in Tel Aviv, Is­rael on De­cem­ber 11.

Ac­cord­ing to an ar­ti­cle ap­pear­ing on the event's of­fi­cial web­site, uci­trackcham­pi­onsleague.com, one stop sched­uled to take place in Paris, France on No­vem­ber 20 had to be post­poned.

The ar­ti­cle stat­ed, "Saint-Quentin-en-Yve­lines will now join the UCI Track Cham­pi­ons League from 2022, and no longer host the sec­ond round of the in­au­gur­al league on No­vem­ber 20, 2021. Fol­low­ing re­cent guid­ance from the French gov­ern­ment, the velo­drome just out­side Paris will con­tin­ue to be used as an es­sen­tial com­mu­ni­ty vac­ci­na­tion cen­tre un­til the end of the year and is there­fore un­able to ful­fil its role as a host venue. Due to the lim­it­ed time re­main­ing to de­liv­er a pre­mi­um event in an al­ter­na­tive lo­ca­tion, the can­celled round will not be re­placed in the 2021 race cal­en­dar."

The Track Cham­pi­ons League has been con­cep­tu­alised in or­der to gen­er­ate greater fan en­gage­ment for the sport, rid­ers will com­pete in the six rounds for po­si­tions on the league ta­ble and to de­ter­mine who is the world's best. Cy­clists com­pete in in­di­vid­ual sprint (match sprint and keirin) and in­di­vid­ual en­durance (elim­i­na­tion and scratch) events on­ly.

A prize pot of €500,000 will be shared equal­ly, with the over­all win­ner of each cat­e­go­ry re­ceiv­ing €25,000. The ac­tion will un­fold across a fast-paced two-hour race pro­gramme sched­uled in prime­time Sat­ur­day evening across con­sec­u­tive week­ends.