Having looked at why there are no attacks on some of the sprint stages, a trend rather than a quirk, there’s still value in the good old doomed breakaway according to Le Télégramme. The newspaper cites Cofidis public relations staff have said that having Anthony Perez up the road in a long breakaway got them more media value than Victor Lafay’s stage win last year because Lafay only attacked in the final kilometre.
Arkéa also claim they’re a well-known brand in France now thanks to the publicity from the Tour in recent years from all the breakaways. You can reach this calculation if you measure how much it would cost to buy Cofidis or Arkéa TV adverts for hours at a time. That’s a shallow way of measuring things. As ever teams prefer wins and Cofidis do say this out loud as well in the piece.
It also depends what teams want from it all, UAE’s backers won’t settle for anything less than the Tour de France. Tadej Pogačar is presumably block booked for July for some time to come unless Isaac del Toro is ready. Similarly a lot of EF staff around the world won’t be watching the Tour live so the efforts of Healy and Carapaz backed by the team tactics are fascinating for us to watch but they really want a result. The big question has to be Ineos, budget now unknown but possibly the biggest spender but discreet in terms of both visibility and results so far.
Talking of budgets, Biniam Girmay’s been one of this year’s Tour heroes and hopefully he’s ok for today’s stage. Whatever happens his team have hit the jackpot. Intermarché-Wanty like to say they’re the lowest budget team in the Tour de France. Impossible to verify as few teams publish their accounts. But the UCI does give all World Tour teams a pack every year that includes a scale to show the scale of team budgets – no numbers, just a line – and each team is shown where they sit so presumably they know what they’re on about. However the team does publish accounts which are filed with the Belgian central bank…
The accounts for 2022 are the latest available so we’re looking in the rear view mirror. They showed income of €7.852 million and expenditure of €8.7 million. That’s a big gap and the team ran at a substantial loss that year, over a million Euros.
A note in the accounts (screengrab above) says the team pledged to balance the books and would do this in part by racing less and not hiring more riders. Plenty of riders did join for 2023 like Rui Costa, Mike Teunissen and Lilian Calmejane but presumably they would have been signed before the accounts went south and subsequent signings have been modest. It means cutbacks in a time when teams are spending more and more but luckily for them Girmay does not need an altitude camp as he just returns home to Asmara.
TotalEnergies have the weakest team on paper but a budget for 2022 of €13.629 million. This could be hard to compare if money was flowing through the team to pay for Peter Sagan and his entourage, it’ll be interesting to see the numbers without him. But French teams also have to meet social security and payroll taxes which add a lot to the budget, a financial headwind if you like. While Intermarché are among those who don’t take on riders as full-time house employees but hire them as contractors.
It’s official, Chinese bike company XDS will invest in the Astana team. It’s not clear what form this will take from new bikes and a budget top-up, or naming rights and a change of ownership. XDS is 喜德盛 “Xi-de-sheng” and plenty of questions remain, one big one is does the company really have enough money to underwrite a World Tour budget for several years? Intermarché moved up the World Tour after buying the old CCC licence for next to nothing. A relegated Astana licence is not worth a lot but there is still value in the World Tour spot as long as they can sign new riders. The knock-on effect will also see other teams have to try and sign riders if they want to avoid relegation.
It’s interesting to see China come into the World Tour. Watch the Jayco-Al Ula team to see if they fly under a Saudi flag soon. If you’re running a lavish tourist project in the desert why not pay a little bit more so you don’t have to share naming rights with an Australian caravan maker?
Transfer rumours? There are not that many big moves. First it’s not big budget but symbolic and reprising Astana where Alexey Lutsenko is linked to IPT which really evokes the end of the Kazakh chapter because he’s been their totem. Similarly Cofidis look set to lose their two best riders, Guillaume Martin to GFDJ and Axel Zingle to Visma-LAB so they’ll be recruiting too.
At the big budget end Remco Evenepoel is the central component and whether he’ll see out his deal at Quick-Step until the end of 2026. An early departure could require a cash payout making him even more expensive to acquire early but how much is he worth? A lot but clearly behind Pogačar and Vingegaard when it comes to making a down-payment on trying to win the Tour.
Loyal readers will remember that Ag2r the company has bought the Ag2r cycling team, now Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale. L’Equipe explained some of the background here, that the team started work on new HQ and this proved costly and time-consuming and then Citroën exercised its option to pull out of a five year deal after three. Team owner Vincent Lavenu was given an ultimatum to sell up for €8,000 (eight thousand) or Ag2r would leave too, effectively the team would end. Some riders even asked if they could buy the team but Ag2r’s offer also came with millions of funding. It shows the brittle nature, Ag2r are owners and on board but new corporate management had considered leaving. Now with Decathlon and managerial changes including some of the factors that have helped the team improve things look more stable.
Ag2r are not having a great Tour but the reasons for this are probably easier to explain that the factors behind their success earlier this season. They sent a better team to the Giro and GC hope Felix Gall had injury issues in the build-up. Gall is capable of a stage win in the Alps but there are rivals on the margins of the top-10 overall who can do this too, think Santiago Buitrago and Giulio Ciccone.
Mark Cavendish was memorably nicknamed le Mozart du 11-dents, “the Mozart of the 11 tooth sprocket”. He’s now composing his victories with 11 speed gearing. Having had Shimano’s 12 speed Dura-Ace last year and seen his chain fall off during the sprint in Bordeaux he reverted to 11 speed. The 12 speed chain is more narrow and for want of a better word, “whippy” in the lateral sense. Plus 11 gears is plenty for a flat sprint stage. His chain came off anyway in Saint-Vulbas but only after sitting up and back-pedalling. It’s a small example of freedom to chose being the ultimate luxury.
Prudhomme… Président? No, with the French government in limbo new ministerial appointments will be made at some point. But don’t ask Tour boss Christian Prudhomme to be sports minister. While he keeps evoking his exit from the job, he told RTL radio on Monday he’s too old now to start a new career in politics. Of course if he changes jobs that was the politician’s answer.
I am not sure Remco going to Ineos, wins him the tour. He will have a better team. But he is simply not as good as the other two. And not that much younger that the path is clear in a couple of years. I think his transfer value has gone down this TdF.
Not today. 🙂
Ineos are in a difficult position. Without Pogacar or Vingegaard the the prospects for a GT win over the coming years look slim while trying to predict the future talent which could become a GT winner is perilous. For 2024 Romandie and Amstel wins, and third in the Giro can’t quite be the return on investment Ratcliffe imagined. Has he even heard of the first two races? At least several contracts are up so elimination of a few aging or underperforming riders might free some budget. I hope the answer isn’t cutting ethical corners.
In JV’s first Tour in 2020 he finished 5 mins behind TP. Remco is 5 mins behind TP and only 2 mins behind JV so far this year. Things can change fast – I remember folks predicting Bernal could dominate the Tour for a decade…
Bernal is a real “what if” – understandable that he’s not the same rider anymore but what a “Gang of 4” we could have had for GC. A real shame.
Ineos are a right mess. You do have to wonder how much longer Ratcliffe will stay interested, though the team’s whole budget is pocket change compared to whatever absurd fee Manchester United will sling in a [poor choice]’s direction.
There was an interesting comment about where the cycle team fits into their sport structure in an article on the Americas cup , at the moment it’s a good synergy but the Americas cup is a specific project with an expiry date. The article read as though the decision on the sports has little to do with financial return an a lot to do with men at the end of their careers indulging their hobbies , i’m not sure that’s any less precarious than a large sponsors interest
In 2021, Jonas didn’t ride for himself and / or his GC standings. He was the Sepp Kuss of the day and surprised everyone with his performances after Roglic’s abandonment, attacking and shaking off Pogacar on Mont Ventoux.
Remco is already a GT winner – and still a class bellow the top, seemingly, but his performances are perhaps suprisingly superb.
LCL seem to have the best advertising deal.
They do, and the cuddly lion is a great idea too.
On that note, is the Giro Wolf thing related to anything sponsor-wise, or is it just a gimmick to latch on?
Just a symbol for the race, you find the wolves in the mountains all over Italy etc.
They had Girbecco,before, designed by a child who had won a RCS contest on the subject
Yes, the Giro + a stambecco = Girbecco.
You can buy a Wolfie toy at the Giro but the LCL lion is only for yellow jersey winners (although including the Dauphiné and Paris-Nice).
Oh, it was supposed to be an ibex?
Italy is fortunately one of the few European countries still blessed by wolves, bears and other beasts. If I am not mistaken, the only Alpine country with a stable bear population.
Slovenia has plenty of bears too, to the point where the ones in the Pyrenees come from Slovenia.
Yes, but afaik Slovenian bears are situated rather in the Dinaric range? Anyway, thanks for correction. 🙂
Ah thanks INRNG! Much appreciated 🙂
Good spot on the Intermarche budget. How can they lose so much money in a year? I presume it means debt to repay as well.
Budgeting isn’t a science and costs can get out of control, things like win bonuses can add up. The UCI licence review is supposed to check this as well, it’s not just on the team and its finances.
You’re right on the debt, the team’s accounts show they already had a lot of debt at the end of 2021, then they added to this in 2022 with money owed to suppliers, possibly staff and the tax authorities. Pick your adjective but the amount of debt is a real concern. So after the overspending comes the need to underspend on the team in order to repay.
Well, they have one rider whose contract, if bought out, would probably erase all of that debt…
It’s fascinating to see the IWA budget – they got 6th and 8th Giro GC places that year (if Giro fits into the accounting year?), as well as Hirt winning the queen stage and surely more success with Girmay or Kristoff (Gent-Wevelgem, Scheldeprijs) – as well as winning the mighty Czech Sazka Tour with Rota.
Their budget seems ridiculously low. (It’s surely a bit higher now.) Three TdF stages, the green jersey… what wouldn’t certain chemical corporation’s team give for it?
Ineos is going to be the most interesting watch on the Netflix series next year.
maybe it will shed some light on the management and DS changes
Girmay is under contract for the next two years, but maybe some other team with deep pockets will be tempted to make then an offer.
The XDS / Astana link up sounds promising but I wonder what headaches the UCI will have trying to sort out the XDS financial situation.
We still have to hear more about what Lefereve will do after this year and the fate of the team.