With exactly six months to go until the start of the event, children’s TV star HELMI was presented as the official mascot of the 2018 UCI Road World Championships during a ceremony at the Walter-Thaler-Schule school in the market town of Telfs on 22 March 2018. “I am delighted that our cycling road safety initiative is going be part of the UCI Road World Championships. That is a great motivation for children to ride their bike. It also sets a good example and is a fantastic way of raising interest in cycling,” explains Wolfgang Haslwanter, traffic safety officer at the Tirol regional education authority.

A total of 1000 athletes and 500,000 spectators are expected to descend on Innsbruck-Tirol for this major international event in September featuring twelve races. While the races will all finish in front of the Hofburg imperial palace in Innsbruck, they will begin in four different start locations across the region: Alpbachtal, Hall-Wattens, Ötztal and Kufsteinerland/Kaiserwinkl. Getting the local population involved is a major priority for the organisers of the 2018 UCI Road World Championships. “With HELMI as the face of the World Championships we will be able to reach not only children currently learning about road safety but also their parents who have known HELMI since their own childhood. We want to encourage locals to ride their bikes and cheer on the athletes along the course. There are lots of ways people can get involved, such as school projects and club initiatives. We want the UCI Road World Championships to inspire people to be part of the event themselves,” explains Georg Spazier, CEO of the organising committee behind the 2018 World Championships.

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is also keen to encourage as many people as possible to get out and ride. The Cycling for All initiative focuses on developing and expanding cycle paths as well as raising awareness among children about the benefits of cycling. “Cycling is important to us not only as a competitive sport practiced by professional athletes but also as a hobby or as a means of transport. We think it’s great that school children learn how to ride their bike and stay safe as part of this cycling road safety initiative in Tirol. Cycling gives children a sense of freedom, so it is important their first experience of riding a bike takes place in a safe and supportive setting,” comments Kevin Benjamin, UCI Road World Championships Manager.

HELMI, who takes his name from the German word for bicycle helmet, has been a cult TV figure in German-speaking countries for more than 35 years and has taught several generations of children how to have fun and stay safe when riding on the road. He has featured in almost 1,500 episodes of his own TV series and since the start has also been used by the Kuratorium für Verkehrssicherheit (KFV), an independent non-profit research organisation in Austria dedicated to investigating and assessing the causes and effects of accidents. Now HELMI has yet another job – promoting the 2018 UCI Road World Championships! Martin Pfanner from the KFV believes the partnership is a win-win situation: “There could be no better mascot for the UCI Road World Championships than HELMI. His unmistakeable trademark, the helmet, is also a key element of staying safe when cycling. HELMI stands for road safety. This is a topic we want to raise awareness about among both children and adults. In Austria we still have work when it comes to convincing riders to wear a helmet. HELMI and the pro cyclists are excellent role models in this respect.”

One such role model is local professional cyclist Stefan Denifl, who is already looking forward to competing at the 2018 UCI Road World Championships in Tirol. “I can’t wait to ride in front of a home crowd. I hope the World Championships can encourage even more people to get into cycling. Who knows, maybe one of the children taking part in the cycling road safety initiative today will grow up to become a professional bike rider,” Denifl concludes with a smile.

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