The civil war that was threatening to destroy cycling may not happen. The UCI and ASO, Unipublic and RCS (organizers of the Grand Tours) have called a ceasefire in their struggle for power and control of their events and cyclign in general. This is good news only one week before the first ProTour race of the year Paris-Nice was supposed to start. Paris-Nice was under threat of having no ProTour teams present. The event was at risk of being run as a Continental or worse and amateur event.
Finally cooler heads are prevailing allowing for the ProTour to continue with all of the 20 teams including Unibet.com and Astana.
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The Tour of California bike race is in its second year and growing. Latest word is that the organizers want to grow the race to become a major Grand Tour. Of course with a successful bike race following the same format for two years in a row, the organizers have nothing to do but dream of ways to make the race grow. In the past thoughts of growing the race to step on the toes of the major Grand Tours would be met with scoffs, laughing or at least a “we can dream can’t we” type of response. Not this year though as cycling as a sport is at a major crossroads where everything is up in the air for its future.
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The Giro D’Italia will feature only 18 of the 20 ProTour Teams and will make the final announcement on February 12. This is a move that signals a large fissure in the battle between the UCI’s and the three Grand Tours. This situation was not helped much when Pat McQuaid made some very odd comments about Continental European culture.
The rift between grand tour organizers and the ProTour should help Tinkoff’s chances in the Giro. Zomegnan noted his differences with UCI president Pat McQuaid and said the two were definitely not talking after recent “Mafia” comments by the Irishman. “You could really see his soul with those remarks.”
– cyclingnews.com
This split with the UCI by not including all of the ProTour teams is a natural adjustment for the Giro D’Italia which as had its little brother status to the Tour exacerbated by the ProTour.
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tuttobiciweb.com points out a gaff on the UCI website. They list a Laurent Jalabert born in 1968 as a rider on the Agritubel Cycling Team. The link can be seen on the Agritubel Team Roster Page. The rider that should be listed is Nicolas Jalabert born in 1973 as can be seen on the Agritubel Cycling Team Website. Maybe a Frenchman was daydreaming when they were filling out the roster and put in Laurent’s name instead. For Nicolas this must be tough living in the shadow of a famous big brother. This is much like a teacher calling you by your older sibling’s name.
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