In June 2019, Tour des Fjords AS (the race organiser for Hammer Stavanger), through the Norwegian Cycling Federation, applied to the UCI for a women's Hammer race to form part of Hammer Stavanger from 2020 onwards.
The race offer was for full equality with the men's race on format, parcour, duration, TV broadcasting and prize-money. In early October 2019, Tour des Fjords AS announced this exciting development, which was well received by teams and riders, particularly as the event would offer a great opportunity to showcase women’s cycling with free worldwide live coverage of all three days of racing, start to finish as with all Hammer races.
Tour des Fjords AS, the Norwegian Cycling Federation (NCF), the Hammer Series and Velon, all strongly believed that this would be an important new event to advance equality for women cycling - a belief that was shared by the teams and riders.
Roy Hegreberg, Event Director of Tour des Fjords AS: "We have had the ambition of organising a women’s race since we started in 2013. We believe international women’s cycling needs events that will give them stronger visibility to develop. This is what we offer with Hammer Stavanger: equality for women and men in terms of promotion, visibility, prize money and sporting aspects. We can't see any reason why the UCI doesn't want to approve this race."
Eystein Stokstad, General Secretary of the Norwegian Cycling Federation: "NCF is a proud supporter of women’s cycling. We value equality in sport, including support for elite-level events because we know that such events are crucial to the development of women’s cycling. It would be very disappointing if the Hammer Stavanger women’s race was not approved by the UCI. NCF supports the vision of Tour des Fjords AS.”