The owner of the world's largest annual sporting event, the Tour de France, has dealt cycling's governing body a massive blow in a political war that has renewed infighting in the sport over power, money, and the future of professional cycling.
After the Amaury Sport Organisation rejected reforms announced by the International Cycling Union in December, it made a counter-announcement that starting in 2017 it would be pulling its races — notably cycling's crown jewel, the Tour — from the highest level of the sport, known as the WorldTour.
That could spell disaster for teams and riders, not to mention threaten the existence of the WorldTour. It could mean some teams that normally enjoy an automatic invite to the Tour would be left out, and that in turn could see sponsors taking their money home and quitting the sport, unless the two factions come to an agreement, which appears far from happening.
The rift has sent shockwaves through the world of cycling. Here's a deeper look at the ASO-UCI deadlock, the latest in a complex, long-simmering conflict:
UCI and Brian Cookson
On one side of the conflict is the UCI, the governing body of world cycling, based in Switzerland. Its aims include globalizing pro cycling and making the sport financially sustainable. Its president, Brian Cookson, has been involved in cycling at many levels for decades. He's halfway through his first four-year term in office.
His objectives, according to the UCI website, are "to rebuild trust in the UCI, transform the way anti-doping is dealt with, grow the sport globally, develop women's cycling, overhaul elite road cycling and strengthen cycling's credibility and influence within the Olympic Movement."
ASO and Jean-Étienne Amaury
On the other side is the ASO, a private, closely held French company that owns the Tour de France, the world's premier bicycle race, the Paris Marathon, the Dakar Rally, Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Spain, and other events. The ASO is part of the French media group Éditions Philippe Amaury, which publishes the sports daily L'Equipe. ASO's president is Jean-Étienne Amaury. He holds an MBA from Stanford and previously worked at Bloomberg.
A sport divided
The chief issue in the current conflict has to do with racing licenses and what they mean both to the races and to the teams.
As it is, each of the 18 teams in the WorldTour, pro cycling's highest level, gets a one-year license and automatic entry to the Tour de France. In its reforms, the UCI aimed to extend the licenses to three years. It hoped that by granting teams longer licenses and three automatic Tour invites, it would help them become more successful in attracting longer-term sponsors. That, many say, would help the sport as a whole become more financially stable, since sponsoring a pro cycling team for one year is seen as a high-risk business proposition — especially if that team is not guaranteed a start in the world's premier bicycle race.
A majority of the teams voted in favor of the reforms.
At least three top teams will be shut out of the 2017 Tour de France.
However, the ASO ultimately rejected the UCI reforms, characterizing the WorldTour as a "closed sport system" and arguing that three-year licenses would compromise the quality of its races by failing to uphold the "sporting criterion" and make races such as the Tour less competitive. The ASO thinks teams should have to prove their worth every year in a more "open" sport with no auto invites.
So the ASO registered all its races, notably the Tour, as "Hors Classe" (HC), and not in the top-tier WorldTour. By doing so, the ASO ensures that the Tour stays within a promotion-relegation system, whereby, in theory, the best teams rise to the top and the worst drop out, similar to the system used in European football. In actuality, it means that every year a few teams get relegated down to pro cycling's second division (Pro Continental) and a few teams get moved up to the first division (WorldTour). And, very importantly, it means that the ASO gets to invite whichever teams it wants to its races.
The catch, as VeloNews reports, is that "HC fields cannot comprise more than 70 percent WorldTour teams. In a 22-team field, that means no more than 15 WT teams, so at least three top teams will be shut out of the 2017 Tour de France. But ASO could invite even fewer ...
"Teams will no longer be able to guarantee a highly valuable Tour spot to sponsors, potentially making them less stable, particularly those near the bottom of the current WorldTour. Riders suffer from unstable teams that are prone to collapse or other financial difficulties. ASO is openly mocking the UCI’s WorldTour system."
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