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The UCI’s New 2020 Calendar Has Too Many Risks

The UCI’s new calendar plan, released on April 15th, was a strong boost of hope for cycling fans – and unquestionably provided a shot in the arm for teams, riders and sponsors. Any glimmer of hope for resuming some kind of season is welcome news, and everyone would certainly welcome a responsibly managed return to racing as soon as the public health situation allows it. And certainly, all stakeholders would agree that the sport desperately needs at least the Tour de France – the event that powers the entire sport – to take place if at all possible. However, there are also considerable risks inherent in the rough plan that the UCI cobbled together earlier this week. Most of the potential risks were already addressed in a previous article, written a day before the UCI announced its latest plans. Although specific dates were proposed for the Tour de France, the rest of the calendar is...

Restarting the 2020 Racing Calendar — Many Questions, but a Few Emerging Answers

The Outer Line takes a look at how the remainder of the racing season could unfold. By making a few simple assumptions about potential restart dates, the remaining race schedule and current team parameters, some clear-cut if controversial conclusions can already be reached. There is no way the three grand tours can effectively be run in their entirety, many other races will either be lost or suffer from extremely thin fields and already stressed pro riders should get ready for extreme pressures to be placed on them. We have to hope that the UCI and key organizers are collectively evaluating all of these constantly changing factors, so that if and when racing continues, cycling can quickly and efficiently present a unified and equitable plan for the calendar. There are a number of perplexing questions around how the remainder of the 2020 racing calendar could potentially play out –...

Inside the AIGCP’s Challenge to the UCI

Just weeks after Velon filed suit against the UCI over its alleged anti-competitive business practices, and only three days after the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) called into question other recent initiatives by the UCI, the association of men’s professional cycling teams – better known by its French acronym AIGCP – circulated a strongly-worded letter to the UCI, voicing various concerns about its organizational, financial, and sporting obligations. The AIGCP is attempting to force some serious and long overdue debate about fundamental problems in the sport, by raising a broad range of structural and economic matters in a very public letter. And while the letter proposes a stronger collaboration between the key stakeholders, like the previous Velon and CADF actions, it is symbolic of the problems dogging the whole sport – continuous in-fighting between various interest groups...

Pay To Play?

Cycling’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), and Tour de France race organizer Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) recently backtracked on one of the key WorldTour reforms both parties agreed to this year. The number of WorldTour teams in 2017 will remain at 18 instead of the ratified plan to trim it to 17, a move which enables continuity of the Dimension Data team’s WorldTour license next year, and quite possibly, the team’s longer-term survival.  But by agreeing to make this exception, The UCI and ASO have set a dangerous precedent and a further potential setback to the sport’s investment climate. Control over the sport’s economic future is at the heart of the matter here, just as we have described in several previous articles.  The UCI and ASO seem incapable of breaking their long standing stalemate over how the sport should be run, and as a result, their...

Calling Time Out On the Team Time Trial

Cycling’s association of teams, the Association International des Groupes Cyclistes Professionels (AIGCP), recently issued a strong rebuke to the sport’s ruling body – the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Generally fed up with the pace of reforms and with the economic pressures they face in trying to field teams for all of the WorldTour’s far-flung races, the teams voted to boycott the upcoming UCI World Team Time Trial (TTT) Championship in Doha. This potential walkout highlights the teams’ growing discontent with the UCI – specifically the expansion of the WorldTour calendar in future years – and the frustration of not having enough input in how they run their own businesses. The key contention pointed out in the August 10, 2016 AIGCP press release announcing the boycott is that the teams will themselves have to continue to shoulder the costs of participating in what is...