Pro Cycling in crisis?

[foxvi]

Pro cycling is in a real danger of fragmenting. The following issues need resolving:

• The Pro Tour calendar, structure, number of teams and legality of the ‘Code of Ethics’
• The ASO, Unipublic and RCS breaking away from the Pro Tour and their stand on issuing ‘wild card’ entries to their events.
• The National Federations of Spain, Austria, Belgium, Italy, France and Luxembourg rejecting the current structure of the Pro Tour and requesting round table talks to be held by all involved in cycling.
• The AIOCC (Internal Association of Cycle racing Organisers) mounting an anti trust challenge to the European Commission on the closed system of competition in the Pro Tour.
• Different drug policies in most countries.
• The fallout from Operation Puerto.

The UCI needs to draw a line under this current presidency. Under this leadership the UCI appears to be alienating all parts of cycling and ‘fire fighting’ on all the above issues. The UCI continues to drive national federations, race organisers and fans away from the Pro Tour vision.



The way out for the UCI is to stand down the current president and initially appoint someone in the short term who can unite cycling and also start the process of electing a new president. If the UCI don’t act they will lose control of pro racing in Europe. With or without the UCI, pro racing in Europe will continue, and the fans, sponsors and teams will follow the riders who want to race in grand tours and classic one day races. I wonder what they will do. Probably nothing and pro racing in Europe will change without them. Does it matter?

 

[Powerful Pete]

You are right about the dangers. But as you also said - what will happen? Chances are that the Grand Tours will set up some kind of alternative structure (they more or less organise all the monuments and a good number of semi-classics in one form or another anyway) and simply go on their merry way.

Then UCI can still call the shots at Lagkawi and in California. Big deal. Oh, and BMX too.

What I find interesting is that for all of our moaning about doping, the spectators, the TV interest, sponsors and new generations of riders are all there (at least in Europe).

What federation [and fans] are ticked off about is the UCI efforts to 'internationalise' cycling at the expense of the classics (Pro Tour), when the base of the sport will always be in Europe. No one is saying not to get more people to ride, but the 3 GTs are here. The monuments are here. The traditional races are also extremely important at national level - winning a 'Tre Valli Varesine' may not be a big deal to you guys, but here in Italy it secures you a contract for the following year!

So let me be provocative. Is there a real crisis?

 

[bladegeek]

Pro cycling is in a real danger of fragmenting. The following issues need resolving:

• The Pro Tour calendar, structure, number of teams and legality of the ‘Code of Ethics’
• The ASO, Unipublic and RCS breaking away from the Pro Tour and their stand on issuing ‘wild card’ entries to their events.
• The National Federations of Spain, Austria, Belgium, Italy, France and Luxembourg rejecting the current structure of the Pro Tour and requesting round table talks to be held by all involved in cycling.
• The AIOCC (Internal Association of Cycle racing Organisers) mounting an anti trust challenge to the European Commission on the closed system of competition in the Pro Tour.
• Different drug policies in most countries.
• The fallout from Operation Puerto.

The UCI needs to draw a line under this current presidency. Under this leadership the UCI appears to be alienating all parts of cycling and ‘fire fighting’ on all the above issues. The UCI continues to drive national federations, race organisers and fans away from the Pro Tour vision.



The way out for the UCI is to stand down the current president and initially appoint someone in the short term who can unite cycling and also start the process of electing a new president. If the UCI don’t act they will lose control of pro racing in Europe. With or without the UCI, pro racing in Europe will continue, and the fans, sponsors and teams will follow the riders who want to race in grand tours and classic one day races. I wonder what they will do. Probably nothing and pro racing in Europe will change without them. Does it matter?

Pro Cyclying right now is a basket case. The organizers of the Deutschland Tour has not stated that Basso can not race in it despite the fact that he has been cleard to race. Now it seems that the reason he got cought up in Operation Puerto is that his name was found on a document during the raid. The document in question was fax that had nothing to do with doping and he got kicked out of the TDF.

The UCI and Pro Cycling has gone off the deep end. The rule is now your guilty until your proven inocent. I do not know if that is a European thing or not but it is wrong.

And not to mention the following new release:

The representatives of six national cycling federations (Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and Luxembourg) have met on Thursday, November 30 in Paris and officially declared their opposition to the UCI ProTour "in its current form." Insisting on the creation of a round table assembling all parties involved in the sport (UCI, AIOCC, CPA, AIGCP), the federations aim to "find solutions which suit all, and not only a small core of persons at the UCI. If [the UCI] continues to oppose this, then the federations will organise the meeting without the UCI," according to a press statement.

Pro Cycling is looking worse then the NBA right now.