The UCI announced Thursday 14 of the 16 events on the 2021-2022 World Cup schedule for cyclocross. Belgium will host the most World Cup events with six, while France and the Netherlands will each host two.

Races in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Flamanville, France, made their first appearances on the World Cup circuit; the two December dates were listed on the schedule as "TBC" until final inspection by the organizers.

The opening race on October 10 will be held in Waterloo, Wisconsin, home of Trek Bikes.

Now in its fifth year, the Jingle Cross is a World Cup race that will be held on October 17 as part of a three-day race weekend in Iowa City, Iowa.

The first World Cup race, held mid-week between the Midwest races, is the Fayette Cross on October 13. The Fayetteville course will be held at the 228-acre Centennial Park and will be a preview of the course for the UCI Cyclocross World Championships to be held January 29-30, 2022.

The Cyclocross World Championships will be held in Fayetteville on January 29-30, 2022, for the second time in North America. The only other time the World Championships were held in the U.S. was in 2013, when they were held outside of Europe for the first time, in Louisville, Kentucky.

"I can say with confidence that there is no cyclocross course like this anywhere in the United States, perhaps nowhere else," said Brooke Watts, Fayette Cross race director.

"For the past 16 months, we've been working on this course, focusing on every meter of the course to make the most of this beautiful Fayetteville mountainside, and we're proud to say that we're the first cyclo-cross course in the U.S. to have a course like this.

"There are daredevil chutes, lung-busting climbs, challenging off-camber sections, and 38 step climbs to test racers.

Watts said that once spectators are allowed to return to the race this fall, "most of the course, even the wooded sections, will be easily accessible."

The optimism of allowing spectators was shared by John Meehan, promoter and race director of Jingle Cross, which includes cyclocross and gravel races for amateurs before and after the World Cup race schedule.

"We are excited to partner with Flanders Classics to bring the UCI Cyclocross World Cup back to Iowa City and the three-day Jingle Cross Cycling Festival. The Jingle Cross Festival will also feature over 60 amateur cyclocross and gravel events, attracting thousands of spectators and participants," Meehan said.

When the 2020-21 schedule was announced last year, the UCI Management Committee confirmed that the Flanders Classic would take over World Cup organizing, limiting the number of events held in Belgium, the historical center of cyclocross, to a maximum of half of the series' 14-16 races It was confirmed that the number of events will be limited to a maximum of half of the 14-16 races in the series. The calendar omitted Iowa City as one of the World Cup rounds and chose Waterloo as the only U.S. venue.

Last season, the calendar was changed due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and only five World Cup events were moved up from the originally scheduled 14. The Waterloo World Cup was cancelled, as was a new event that was to be held in Dublin, Ireland. The few events that were continued were limited to a narrow region that included Belgium, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands.