A winter sport popular in Europe, and of late, America, cyclocross involves Lycra-clad athletes on modified road-bikes with off-road tyres racing laps of freezing, muddy mixed-terrain courses, and attracting thousands of spectators.
BIKE NZ regional development manager Paul Dahl said although the August date had been confirmed by the international cycling body, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), there was still a lot of planning to do, in addition to finding sponsors and funding.
As a "relatively new" sport in New Zealand, cyclocross events across the country, such as the New Zealand Cyclocross Championship in Queenstown in July, have been run by several different parties.
However, in order to make athletes eligible for points which go towards UCI rankings, sponsorship and event qualifying, these events need to become part of a national and international calendar.
"At the moment we've had a lot of enthusiastic people running them to various standards and a lot of people have enjoyed it," Mr Dahl said.
"Now that we're getting quite a lot of interest we're setting up an advisory group on the technical aspects of the sport, in order to be full championships and get the advantages of it being run to international rules."
The organiser of the 100% Pure Winter Games, Arthur Klap, said although very little had been confirmed apart from its inclusion in this year's programme, he thought it would be a "fantastic event".
"We're keen to develop some off-snow activity that complements what's happening up the hills. Cyclocross is a perfect example of something that could happen in the future winter games, and the status of those other events could become as high as the ones that are happening up on the snow," Mr Klap said.
As the international cyclocross season is based around the northern hemisphere dates, BIKE NZ applied to hold the event earlier in our winter to attract international athletes for pre-season competition, Mr Dahl said.
"We may ramp up more national and international events that will be scheduled not only to attract international people, but also to make sure we're timing it so we have the cream of our national athletes, who for some of the year might be overseas."
For now, he said, BIKE NZ was focusing on running the event to an international standard, building up experience for clubs and officials, and finding supporting groups of sponsors to make sure they "get a reputation for running really hot events".
"Once we've proved this as a demonstration event or as a first off, if it fits their model of future events, I could see it, around the time of the winter games, being just even wider, as the winter games cover not only the province but also into Canterbury.
"The future of the sport is all over New Zealand but the concept of building in a series is something we'll be talking to games organisers in the future, but primarily we want to get the event off to a good start, and let's do one really well."
CYCLOCROSS
• A winter cycling sport popular in Europe and America.
•The cyclocross northern hemisphere racing season runs from September to February, with the World Championships in January.
•Cyclocross bikes are like road bikes, except with knobby tyres for off-road conditions.
•Competitors must wear Lycra.
•Racers lap 2.5km to 3.5km courses with road, dirt trails, steep hills and obstacles such that they have to carry bikes.
