The Tour de l’Avenir translates as the “Tour of the Future” and this year’s race begins a chapter in the race with new ownership and an extended format. It’s now an eight day race reserved for U-23 riders and has to be the best single guage of new talent.
Past winners include Felice Gimondi, Joop Zoetemelk, Laurent Fignon, Greg LeMond, Miguel Indurain and Nairo Quintana.
A note to say a guide to the 2013 Vuelta is online. Just go to inrng.com/vuelta or use the navigation bar above with the Vuelta link.
There are four jerseys in the Vuelta a España: red, green, blue polka dot and white. Unlike the Tour which has been trying to engineer the points allocation to provide distinct winners the Vuelta sees a big correlation where the leader in one competition is likely to be leading another competition and possibly all four at the same time.
As well as the jerseys, here’s a look at the cash prizes available in the race.
After his Irish support collapsed, Pat McQuaid had announced that Swiss Cycling was nominating him to stand as President as the UCI. The Swiss federation has now withdrawn its support.
In addition the UCI has sought legal advice regarding its recent actions relating to the presidential nominations. Whilst the press release to accompany this sounded confident, the opinion isn’t as firm and McQuaid’s additional Thai and Moroccan nominations are far from secure.
But the more we look at points of law, the more we see a dysfunctional governing body stuck in procedural quicksand. The contest to become UCI President is slipping into the hands of the lawyers.
You can download the stages of the 2013 in Vuelta a España for your electronic diary organiser, phone, computer.
Confronted with a challenger who was once a colleague, he’s looking for ways to stay in the job and keep his lucrative salary. Is this Bradley Wiggins or Pat McQuaid?
This and more, including Sylvain Chavanel’s possible new bike for 2014. And why do track and field athletes in Moscow often wear such unaerodyanamic clothing?
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.
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.
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?
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.