Belgium has been chosen to host the first UEC Gravel European Championships on October 1, 2023. The continental championships will be held in Oude Hevele in Flanders, and two weeks later, on October 15, the start and finish of the first Belgian Gravel National Championships will also take place.

By joint agreement between the European Cycling Union (UEC), the city of Oude Hevele, and Gorasso, the event's technical organizer, the gravel titles for the European Championships will be contested separately by men and women in the elite and masters categories. The race program and course details will be announced later this month.

The new continental championships in gravel will be held on the Sunday before the 2023 Gravel World Championships in Italy on October 7-8; in 2024, the UCI Gravel World Championships will be held in Flanders, starting in Halle and finishing north of Leuven's Oude Hevalley at the Finish.

"Gravel is a discipline that has grown significantly in the last few years, both in terms of the number of competitors and media coverage. It attracts cyclists of all ages and all types, from professionals to avid enthusiasts," UEC President Enrico Della Casa said in an official statement. [The UEC has always been very attentive and open to new forms, which is why we wanted to organize our own European Championships for this particular discipline.

The UEC said it is in the process of confirming its plans for the next three years of the Gravel European Championships and is firming up its calendar through 2026.

Gravel gained a grip on the global platform with the establishment of the UCI Gravel World Championships last year. The event, also organized by Golasso, was held in Veneto, Italy, in early October, with France's Pauline Ferrand-Prevot taking the women's elite rainbow jersey and Belgium's Gianni Vermeersch taking the men's elite title.

There are now many regional and national championships in the gravel disciplines; the 2023 calendar includes the new Nordic and Baltic Gravel Championships, with eight countries that are members of the Nordic Cycling Federation; USA Cycling, hinted that it will participate in gravel in 2023, but the dates and locations have not yet been confirmed.