Tour De France

Soni

Hi Guys, i'm probably going to come accross as a right dummy here, but i was wondering if somebody could explain the following to me please. :oops:

I like road cycling, mainly because of Armstrong, but i haven't got a clue of how the races work. :oops:

There seems to be so many races leading up to the Tour De France, i.e., Giro de Italia etc., but what do these races mean leading up to the Tour?

I see that Armstrong and his team Astana haven't been that successful in the Italia, can that effect their result in the Tour?

jimycooper

sorry to burst your bubble, but the world does not revolve around the tour.

some riders make the tour their priority, and use races like the giro for training(like armstrong) but others make it their goal of the season, like all the smaller italian teams that are racing. im guessing a lot of their funding is based on getting a result in their countrys biggest race.

cougie

The tour is still THE most impportant race, and the big guns will be all out for it. But not every team can get in so other races are equally important to smaller teams.

Astana are in the tour - so no worries from them - results dont really matter in the giro with regards to the tour - although if someone does well in Italy - they may feel that the pressure is off them slightly.

If the astana sposnorship fails as looks likely - the team need to impress in order to get sponsors, or get places on other teams.

afx237vi

Soni wrote:

Hi Guys, i'm probably going to come accross as a right dummy here, but i was wondering if somebody could explain the following to me please. :oops:

I like road cycling, mainly because of Armstrong, but i haven't got a clue of how the races work. :oops:

There seems to be so many races leading up to the Tour De France, i.e., Giro de Italia etc., but what do these races mean leading up to the Tour?

I see that Armstrong and his team Astana haven't been that successful in the Italia, can that effect their result in the Tour?

The pro cycling season consists of hundreds of bike races:

http://cyclingnews.com/road/?id=cal09

Each race means something in its own right, but none of them mean anything in relation to each other. The different teams and riders choose what races mean the most to them, in terms of sponsor needs and fanbases and TV exposure and so on.

For some teams, the Tour is not the most important race of the year. For example, Liquigas are invited to both the Tour and the Giro, but because they are an Italian team with an Italian sponsor, most of their efforts will be focused on the Giro.

Soni

Thanks guys for your replies, so the teams don't have to score points in the previous races to get into the next races, the points aren't carried over?

Sorry for coming accross as so thick! :oops:

afx237vi

Soni wrote:

Thanks guys for your replies, so the teams don't have to score points in the previous races to get into the next races, the points aren't carried over?

Sorry for coming accross as so thick! :oops:

No. A couple of years ago, the UCI attempted to organise a season-long competition in which the 20 "best" teams got automatically invited to the biggest race, but it was an utter disaster. The end result was teams being forced to ride in races in which they had no interest, and race organisers being forced to accommodate teams they didn't want.

The situation now is race organisers have total control over who gets to ride in their races. They'll usually invite teams which are local or teams that they think will make for an exciting race. So races with lots of climbs are going to go for teams with climbers, etc...

With race invites, more often than not the story is about who doesn't get invited, rather than who does. If a team has riders who fail a dope test, or bring bad publicity to a race, then they can expect to get snubbed for the next edition of the race.