Ollfardh wrote:
I thought the World Tour was finaly going the right way, no idea why they want this "Champions League of cycling".
What needs to change in the World Tour is to make it slightly bigger. Upgrade California to WT as well, so there's also an American stage race (which is much more interesting than TDU or Beijing as well). Maybe a Middle-East race as well, Oman perhaps? San Luis and Gabon could be added as well. And to balance add a few more classic races that deserve WT status based on history and participating field: Paris-Tours, Oploop Het Nieuwblad, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Brabantse Pijl, Gran Piemonte, Milano-Turino.
California could be WT but they don't want to, because they couldn't invite local Continental teams, and maybe many WT teams don't really care about the race (no matter how good or interesting it is).
I think they should get rid of it, and switch back to the pre-2005 system.
IIRC 10 teams had a special status and had the privilege to choose where they'd race, their applications could not be refused. Then the organisers would invite any other team they'd like to to complete the start list.
Euskaltel wasn't part of the 10, but they wouldn't apply for Paris-Roubaix anyway, so that left one more room for a Dutch or Belgian team for example, etc.
No matter how I look at it, I don't really see how the WT has made pro cycling any better than what it was.
I agree with you on the teams! That would solve the California problem as well. To be World Tour team you would have to have results everywhere, stage races, cobbles, etc. So we would only get a selected number of WT teams that can perform good throughout the world tour. So Euskaltel is out, since they won't get the needed results on cobbles, a few others like Argos will go out as well because they don't have climbers. The remaining teams will be strong allround and send a good team to all WT races, while many other good or local teams still get wildcards.
That means the team has very little time left to get good results. No Giro or TDF, only P-N/T-A, MSR and the classics remain... hopefully they'll be good at P-N/T-A like last year and maybe they can get a very good result on a major classic somewhere.
Ollfardh wrote:
I agree with you on the teams! That would solve the California problem as well. To be World Tour team you would have to have results everywhere, stage races, cobbles, etc. So we would only get a selected number of WT teams that can perform good throughout the world tour. So Euskaltel is out, since they won't get the needed results on cobbles, a few others like Argos will go out as well because they don't have climbers. The remaining teams will be strong allround and send a good team to all WT races, while many other good or local teams still get wildcards.
I see the point you and Aquarius are making but as a fan of Vacansoleil I really hope that this won't happen It would severely degrade the bottom half of the WT roster and would put them back at essentially continental level. For teams like VCD, Argos, Lotto and many others this would be disastrous. With the increasing popularity of the sport there are more and more big companies that want to sponsor a team, and they all want a spot on the top level.
Ollfardh wrote:
And Blanco hired a military interrogator to question the riders
This isn't 100% clear yet.
The paper that wrote about this was the Dutch 'De Telegraaf', a tabloid-esque newspaper that is not actually known for it's detailed and thorough (cycling) journalism.
Also, the teams involved, Blanco and Vacansoleil, were quick to dismiss the article as inaccurate. According to them the teams hired a third party person as a mediator to sit along the riders and the team management during the questionnaire on the riders doping past, as part of the Dutch amnesty plans for doping before 2008. The man involved happened to have worked as a sports instructor for the commandos, and according to the teams the riders were in no way interrogated or pressured during the meeting.
Of course, the team directors are not independent sources on this and you might not take them for their word, but taking De Telegraaf on their word isn't a smart thing either.
Aquarius wrote:
Euskaltel wasn't part of the 10, but they wouldn't apply for Paris-Roubaix anyway, so that left one more room for a Dutch or Belgian team for example, etc.
While I agree with the rest of your post, this is not true. I used to think the same, but that year where not all WT races were mandatory they applied (and were accepted!)
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"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
ShortsNL wrote:
For teams like VCD, Argos, Lotto and many others this would be disastrous.
Why ? From the name I can tell VCD is a touring company, Argos I'm not too sure (without googling for it) although there used to be some geo-positioning device called Argos in the mid-90's, and Lotto is the national lottery.
ShortsNL wrote:With the increasing popularity of the sport there are more and more big companies that want to sponsor a team, and they all want a spot on the top level.
Increasing popularity ? It's not like cycling is popular to a level never seen before. It might be better than a couple of years ago, but nothing like 20 or 50 years ago.
My point is, even though you have Team Sky, there are no Team Nike, Team Microsoft, Team Mitsubishi, Team EDF-Areva, etc. Most sponsors don't have interest on advertising on a global scale. They want advertising on their target market, which is usually national and/or continental.
And, they also want their image associated with the top level of competition on their targeted markets.
Forcing 16, 18 or 20 teams to have one naming sponsor with a world-wide interest might be suited for sports like Formula 1, but that's not working for cycling in the current state of things.
Ollfardh wrote:
And Blanco hired a military interrogator to question the riders
This isn't 100% clear yet.
The paper that wrote about this was the Dutch 'De Telegraaf', a tabloid-esque newspaper that is not actually known for it's detailed and thorough (cycling) journalism.
Also, the teams involved, Blanco and Vacansoleil, were quick to dismiss the article as inaccurate. According to them the teams hired a third party person as a mediator to sit along the riders and the team management during the questionnaire on the riders doping past, as part of the Dutch amnesty plans for doping before 2008. The man involved happened to have worked as a sports instructor for the commandos, and according to the teams the riders were in no way interrogated or pressured during the meeting.
Of course, the team directors are not independent sources on this and you might not take them for their word, but taking De Telegraaf on their word isn't a smart thing either.
About that: in an interview with Dutch news website nu.nl, Theo Bos stated the following when asked about commando Eelco Wisman (translated by me so not Bos' actual words):
"I once spoke him for about 15 minutes. Well, spoke... He was just sitting at the table listening to the conversation between me and team manager Richard Plugge. With Richard, I talked about the answers on the questionnaire (Team Blanco, Vacansoleil-DCM, and the KNWU (Royal Dutch Cycling Union) received an anti-doping agreement consisting of four questions, ed).
He [commando Wisman] didn't say much. I didn't have any issues with him sitting there. I've got nothing to hide and I think it's a good thing that the investigation has an official touch. The article in De Telegraaf made me laugh out loud. Therefore I placed a tweet: "The 'waterboarding' indead wasn't very pleasant...""
It would severely degrade the bottom half of the WT roster and would put them back at essentially continental level. For teams like VCD, Argos, Lotto and many others this would be disastrous. With the increasing popularity of the sport there are more and more big companies that want to sponsor a team, and they all want a spot on the top level.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
