The Veron Group announced Friday that it has filed an additional complaint with the European Commission alleging that the UCI discriminates against women's cycling.

According to a press release from Veron, the organizers of the Tour des Fjords, which runs the Hammer Stavanger, wanted to add a women's race to the Hammer event to achieve gender equality in race format, course, distance, television airtime, and prize money. According to Veron, the race was submitted to and approved by the UCI Management Committee as part of the UCI Road Commissions' proposed 2020 calendar.

"However, the UCI informed the Norwegian Cycling Federation on October 18, 2019, one week after the calendar was officially announced, that the UCI Management Commission had rejected the application for a women's Hummer race as 'not in the interest of women's cycling,'" Velon said. " This follows the UCI's rejection of support for the Hammer Colombia (an event offering women's racing on full parity with men's), which was announced on June 14, 2019."

"We have had the ambition to organize a women's race since we started in 2013," said Roy Hegreberg, event director of the Tour des Fjords AS.

"We believe that for international women's cycling to develop, we need an event that gives it stronger visibility. It is gender equal in promotion, visibility, prize money, and the sporting aspect; we see no reason why the UCI would not want to approve this race.

Veron says it has amended its earlier complaint to the European Commission to include discrimination against women's cycling. The original complaint stated that the UCI "attempted to enforce existing regulations and introduce new regulations designed to favor the UCI's business interests to the detriment of the teams."

He accused UCI of using its regulatory and political power to interfere with Veron's business activities.

The UCI had planned to add the Hammer Colombia event to its calendar, but the Colombian Cycling Federation refused to host the February event, citing a scheduling conflict.

The UCI also stated in its rules that the Hammer race should not be called a series.

Eleven of the 18 men's WorldTour teams are participating in Véron: Beulah Hansgrohe, CCC Team, Detunink Quickstep, EF Education First, Lot Soudal, Mitchelton Scott Cotto, Team Ine Os, Team Jumbo Visma, Team Sunweb, Trek Segafredo, and UAE Team Emirates.

Aside from the proposal to add a women's race to the Hammer event, the group has little representation of women's teams or athletes and has not previously advocated for the business interests of women's teams.

Cycling News asked the UCI for comment on the Hammer Stavanger women's event, but did not receive a response prior to the publication of this article.