Month: August 2013

Is Pat McQuaid Losing It?

The battle between Pat McQuaid and Brian Cookson to be President of the UCI rages on. At times it’s personal, at times it’s policy-based but it’s also procedural.

Now there’s a dispute over whether Pat McQuaid has actually been nominated by the Thai and Moroccan federations with Cookson calling on McQuaid to show the proof. Most interestingly McQuaid is not calmly providing the paperwork but calling on Cookson to back off. Why?

The more you read into things, the more McQuaid hints his nomination is in danger but for the sake of the contest he should still be allowed to stand for President.

Read more

The Back Door

There’s plenty of news of rider transfers with several teams making a series of announcements, signing new riders to strengthen the team. It’s exciting and it’s the future.

But what of the others, the riders who are not making the headlines, those who are likely to be out of contract? They’ll quietly leave the sport by the back door.

Read more

The Story of The Season

Zdenek Stybar Eneco Tour

August is the busiest month of the year for pro cycling with more race days than any other time of the year. But there’s a comedown after the Tour de France and it’s also hard to place the races in context.

Much of the season sees the calendar spread out like chapters in storybook but once the Tour is over it feels like the tale stops. For example some of the enjoyment of the Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse comes from anticipating tactics and form ahead of the Tour de France, the same with other races before the classics or Giro.

But August is different, there’s little to build up to the Vuelta and perhaps even Zdeněk Štybar’s win today in the Eneco Tour is something to think about in the context of next year’s spring classics?

Read more

A Shortage of Teams for the World Tour?

The World Calendar features men’s pro cycling’s best races plus the Tour of Beijing. It comes with 18 UCI Pro Teams or at least that is the plan. But it is becoming apparent that there could be just 17 teams in the top flight for 2014 despite efforts by the UCI to encourage candidates for promotion.

This shortage is unexpected and even if a team decides to make a bid for promotion highlights a problem with the team licensing process and the gap between the top level of the sport and the rest.

Read more

Friday Shorts

Bjarne Riis is going to court to reduce a doping punishment. But it’s to do with the UCI’s rule that a returning rider from a significant doping ban cannot earn “sporting value” points for his team. These points are used to rank a team for its licence status and in the case of Saxo-Tinkoff, it means Alberto Contador’s points from the Tour de France, Vuelta and more don’t count. The team’s not got many points because it’s not won much but Roman Kreuziger and Rafał Majka have collected some.

But it’s not about Saxo-Tinkoff or Riis. The point with this punishment is that it’s a sanction above and beyond the WADA Code.

Read more

Forecasts are for Fools

Stage 9 of the Tour de France and the end of the one of the most unpredictable days of racing in recent times. Perhaps, especially with hindsight, Dan Martin winning a Pyrenean stage is predictable but Chris Froome isolated whilst his team goes into meltdown with Richie Porte losing minutes and Vasil Kiriyenka missing the time cut? Who predicted that?

Race previews have a predictive element. Some aspects are known, the route of a stage of the Tour de France has been written down for months but other elements are less certain, like the weather. The greatest uncertainty comes with the race itself and picking the winner.

During the Tour de France I tipped some riders to win before the race and each day’s preview contained some likely stage winners. It turns out some readers were using the info to place bets and I got messages of thanks but also a few angry emails about lost money. Given real money is being spent, not to mention the anxious credit of fantasy cycling, I wanted to explore the idea and merit of forecasting. Forecasts are for fools.

Read more

Team Victory Rankings

With the final stage of the Tour of Denmark Mark Cavendish took his 16th win of the year, putting first for the number of wins this year, ahead of Marcel Kittel and Peter Sagan.

These rankings are simplistic they still help explain plenty, from departing sponsorship to in-race strategy. And behind the numbers we can see the gap between the World Tour and the lower level Pro Continental ranks which is both quantitative and qualitative where the second division teams win less but, uniquely, are keen to avoid promotion.

Read more

Friday Shorts

Astana announced the signing of Franco Pellizotti but seemed to forget that the team is a member of the self-regulatory MPCC grouping whose code of conduct goes above and beyond the WADA Code and UCI rules. Rule 2 of the MPCC says a team cannot sign a rider who has had a ban longer than six months for two years following the end of the ban.

Read more

Transfer Season

Rigoberto Uran Giro

Today is the start of the transfer season for pro cycling, at least in official terms. It’s the time when deals to change teams can be signed but also the start of a nervous two months for lesser riders whose contract is up at the end of the year.

The more you look at it, the more 1 August is an arbitrary date rather than the start of anything new. More so right now because almost every top rider looks to be staying put for 2014.

Read more

+ More