Originally posted by Frihed89
Really good American riders have had 3 choices in the last 5-6 years:
1. Support LA on USPS
2. Go to a Euro team and get mistreated
3. Join CSC
If Julich regains his past form this year, and he seems to be moving in that direction, maybe more will follow to his and Tyler's (former) team, CSC. Riis seems to bring out the best in "has beens". The down side is, not much money. Bjarne is cheap.
This year, there are 4-5 riders from CSC who could end up in the top ten at the TDF.
Whatever happened to Kevin Livingston after Telecom?
The alternatives for US cyclists is an interesting conundrum.
Indeed the whole issue of dropping levels of sponsorship is a major concern in this sport.
If you look at the amount of sponsors leaving the sport, it is a worry.
When Mapei for example, leave the sport after 20 years because of all the doping scandals, this surely would warrant the immediate attention of the UCI (Ha !).
Cycling news reports today that USPS haven’t committed to renewing their sponsorship
of their cycling team after 2004 (the contract end date).
It is very interesting because if LA does decide to retire and USPS thus stop sponsoring the team, this would be a blow.
(and it will be interesting to see if there is a corresponding drop off in the number of US-based fans of our sport – and indeed posters to this site !!).
I think US cyclists need to adopt the same approach as those other cyclists from countries, where cycling is not a traditional sport.
CSC certainly has a good mix of nationalities – Cofidis also has a good blend of cyclists from different locations.
Patrick Lefevere’s team – Domo – is pretty mixed as well.
But I agree, the majority of teams tend to be populated by those cyclists from the traditional strong cycling nations.
There is no simple answer to this – I think that the UCI need to look at how the sport can attract more sponsorship.
I agree in principle with the Pro-Tour concept which the UCI have copied from the F1 and Tennis.
Also there seems to be a big divide between the very high earning cyclists and the domestiques
Look at the difference between Landis and Armstrongs salaries ; accepted
that LA is a TDF champion, but is his reported salary of $4m per year, but does LA really deserve to command a salary which is 100 times greater than Landis reported salary $40k per year.
(And before people decide to reply that I’m having a go at LA, the same applies to JU,
Look at JU’s behaviour when he walked away from Bianchi, even after Bianchi rescued him and, through rescuing him, allowed him to partake in the 2003 TDF).
Livingstone by the way retired at 32 years of age (a very good cyclist IMO !)
