With the UCI World Road Championships beginning today in Doha, UCI vice president Tracey Gaudry told insidethegames: "We’ve been very careful about being very ambitious and progressive, creating a UCI Women’s WorldTour for the first time with 17 races and 35 days of racing - more than tripling the number of competition days since the 2015 Women’s World Cup - in the first year.

"The great news is that there are more applications for next year and we will add four spectacular events to the UCI Women’s WorldTour.

"When we announce the 2017 calendar in less than a week’s time, we know the teams, riders, sponsors, media and fans will be very excited - the momentum is continuing to build."

Gaudry, who competed in the road race for Australia at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and is also President of the UCI Women’s Commission, has a huge sense of expectation about the forthcoming Championships in the Qatari capital, where Britain’s Lizzie Deignan - nee Armitstead - will seek to defend her road race title.

"The UCI Road World Championships are the climax of the season, and the rainbow jersey is really the holy grail for any elite rider," she said.

"The Worlds, with their week-long narrative and worldwide exposure are for all stakeholders - riders, teams, organisers, broadcasters and partners - a unique showcase benefiting our series and our discipline.

 "The Women’s WorldTour was a vision we established three years ago with the new administration of the UCI.

"The Women’s World Cup was a strong series, however, its narrative was limited to ten to 14 one day races over a whole season, which was excellent, but we wanted to create a stronger platform for world class organisers, teams, riders, sponsors and the media.

"The inaugural UCI Women’s WorldTour presented 17 events comprising 13 one day races and four stage races from March to September, staged in nine countries on three continents.

"Fans enjoyed an exciting narrative from the spring Classics early in the season, to exciting stage races on three continents, to the Monument races alongside a number of men’s UCI WorldTour events.

"We are building something steadily but strongly.

"Next year, we will strengthen the events platform, retaining the 2016 UCI Women’s WorldTour events and adding new and outstanding events that we can’t wait to announce.

"We have a strong administration at UCI that is dedicated to women’s cycling across all disciplines with all programmes supervised by women’s cycling coordinator Morgane Gaultier, and championed by deputy director general Amina Lanaya.

“We have invested significantly in women’s cycling over the past three years under the [Brian] Cookson administration and this will continue into 2017. 

"We’ve worked extensively with organisers and media to strengthen the platform, the narrative and the brand.

"We know we have much more work to do, and we are embracing the next stage."

Read full story in The Big Read here.