2016 Worlds....Qatar
Richmond Racer
Posts: 8,561
So, with everything else going, havent had the chance to generally deride the announcement from the UCI that the land of very very flat and straight roads, ludicrous temps in Sep, and no spectators bar some disinterested camels, will host the 2016 Worlds...
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Cav should be happy anyway.
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.0 -
I agree, if Sagan hasn't eaten him and all the others sprinters0
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Get your money on a climber, I say.
Four years is plenty time for them to build a fully air conditioned replica of Ventoux in the desert somewhere.Mangeur0 -
This is a great choice for developing our sport globally!0
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AchillesLeftKnee wrote:Get your money on a climber, I say.
Four years is plenty time for them to build a fully air conditioned replica of Ventoux in the desert somewhere.
I don't seem to recall the summit of Ventoux having any sort of ambience that resembles an air-conditioned environment !0 -
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Presumably Qatar doesn't have any extradition treaties with Europe & the US.
Fat Pat probably has been given a very large bank vault stuffed full of cash, to go alongside the one given to the FIFA executives.0 -
Are they nuts?
http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/qatar/doha
"Current conditions 35 °C Sunny. Extremely hot"
Remember that you are an Englishman and thus have won first prize in the lottery of life.0 -
Fake crosswinds must be easier than fake climbs.0
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Tom Butcher wrote:Cav should be happy anyway.
He'll have retired by then...0 -
nweststeyn wrote:Tom Butcher wrote:Cav should be happy anyway.
He'll have retired by then...
At just 31? Wouldnt be so sure about that.0 -
Richmond Racer wrote:nweststeyn wrote:Tom Butcher wrote:Cav should be happy anyway.
He'll have retired by then...
At just 31? Wouldnt be so sure about that.
Was meant as a kinda double meaning joke for Cav haters (he'll not have any teams left willing to take him) and Cav lovers (he'll have achieved everything he can and stopped).
I forgot to put the winky smiley at the end......
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nweststeyn wrote:Richmond Racer wrote:nweststeyn wrote:Tom Butcher wrote:Cav should be happy anyway.
He'll have retired by then...
At just 31? Wouldnt be so sure about that. Was meant as a kinda double meaning joke for Cav haters (he'll not have any teams left willing to take him) and Cav lovers (he'll have achieved everything he can and stopped).
I forgot to put the winky smiley at the end......
Ahhhhhh....talk about hedging your bets 0 -
Spent 6 weeks in Qatar this time last year and can state that it is, without doubt, the sh!test place I have ever cycled. It has NO redeeming features. The temperature did not dip below 33c in that entire time - and I mean at any point; day or night. Amongst others, I was working with some Indians, Afghans, Iranians and Australians and they were ALL banging on about the dreadful heat...
The deal has been done for the 2016 Worlds, so I guess it's too late to move them...
The landscape is utterly barren... and culturally/spiritually it felt like being in Western film set or a theme park, where if you peer round the back, you'll see the workmen hoisting pulleys and operating great big façades...
The only reason anyone goes there is if they're being paid.
Unless the price is right, I'll never go there again out of principle.0 -
OCDuPalais wrote:Spent 6 weeks in Qatar this time last year and can state that it is, without doubt, the sh!test place I have ever cycled. It has NO redeeming features. The temperature did not dip below 33c in that entire time - and I mean at any point; day or night. Amongst others, I was working with some Indians, Afghans, Iranians and Australians and they were ALL banging on about the dreadful heat...
The deal has been done for the 2016 Worlds, so I guess it's too late to move them...
The landscape is utterly barren... and culturally/spiritually it felt like being in Western film set or a theme park, where if you peer round the back, you'll see the workmen hoisting pulleys and operating great big façades...
The only reason anyone goes there is if they're being paid.
Unless the price is right, I'll never go there again out of principle.
Fark. The UCI leadership deserve to be taken out into the desert and left there0 -
Now not so negative! The money UCI recieves on this deal might give us another epic race in China! Though, it obviously depends on the amount transfered as Pat normally takes 90%.0
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Ah, will we ever see the wonders that the Tour of Hangzhou would no doubt have to offer...the UCI are optimistically trying for it again next year I see...0
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Why are the people who run sport always the most egregious morons you could possibly imagine.0
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Richmond Racer wrote:Ah, will we ever see the wonders that the Tour of Hangzhou would no doubt have to offer...the UCI are optimistically trying for it again next year I see...
At least China has potential; at least any money or effort the UCI spends there makes sense, at least it's an emerging market for cycling. I've not been there, but it seems to have pretty much every terrain and climate going. Also, there are probably all manner of b@stard hard climbs that the rest of the World hasn't heard of that could compare with b@stard hard climbs that the Giro and the Vuelta unveil every year in their annual willy-comparing competition...
Plus, there's a huge and culturally diverse population that could potentially become a massive audience for the pro scene.
In Qatar, there's none of that. I'd love to hear where anyone thinks the potential is (other than to embiggen their bank accounts).
It's a flattened sand-pit in on the middle shelf of an oven on full power with a tiny indigenous and indifferent population of immense wealth (400 years supply of natural gas - essentially state owned) and a large population of foreign itinerant workers who'll erect the spectator stands, polish the luxury toilets and stand by the side of the road waving Qatari flags...wondering what's going on.0 -
OCDuPalais wrote:Richmond Racer wrote:Ah, will we ever see the wonders that the Tour of Hangzhou would no doubt have to offer...the UCI are optimistically trying for it again next year I see...
At least China has potential; at least any money or effort the UCI spends there makes sense, at least it's an emerging market for cycling. I've not been there, but it seems to have pretty much every terrain and climate going. Also, there are probably all manner of b@stard hard climbs that the rest of the World hasn't heard of that could compare with b@stard hard climbs that the Giro and the Vuelta unveil every year in their annual willy-comparing competition...
Plus, there's a huge and culturally diverse population that could potentially become a massive audience for the pro scene.
In Qatar, there's none of that. I'd love to hear where anyone thinks the potential is (other than to embiggen their bank accounts).
It's a flattened sand-pit in on the middle shelf of an oven on full power with a tiny indigenous and indifferent population of immense wealth (400 years supply of natural gas - essentially state owned) and a large population of foreign itinerant workers who'll erect the spectator stands, polish the luxury toilets and stand by the side of the road waving Qatari flags...wondering what's going on.
Do you write for a living OC? A journo? If not, you should give it some serious thought as perhaps a future endeavour: logic, insight, turn of phrase....0 -
Must have been some brown envelope activity going on somewhere.
Why else would it be held in that crap hole?0 -
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Is Qatar on a secret mission to kill off any interest in sport? They are doing a good job of it!0
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Rick Chasey wrote:2017 better be in Columbia
Ay curumba!
Or...how about the 2017 Worlds to go to whichever location - Scotland or Yorkshire - that fails to get the 2016 TDF stage(s)?
Any race organisers that can't get a stunning course established in either of those places should be put in a big sack with Hein, Pat, Lance, Johan, Michele, Eufemiano, etc, and all the sponsors who've pulled out of women's cycling, etc, then driven out to the country in the cloak of night... to a really lovely restaurant for a slap-up feed.
It's the only language they understand0 -
1. Lack of imagination.Milton50 wrote:Why are the people who run sport always the most egregious morons you could possibly imagine.
2. Because being a moron isn't that much of a barrier to promotion to such positions, and because, statistically, most people are morons. The latter fact has secondary relevance in that those who perceive and imagine and what have you are, of course, mostly morons: a moron will see a moron in a non-moron as readily as he'll see one in a bona fide moron. It'd seem that we, as a species, have achieved amazing things in spite of ourselves. But then you have to consider point 1.
1968, human content on bitumen.0 -
Qatar were the only candidate for the 2016 Worlds. If you're all going to sit and complain why not be proactive and ask BC why they didn't consider hosting it?0
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About time the Worlds came to Ireland.“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0
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This is totally incorrect. You clearly have enough bile about the place to put together a decent argument, so why include ridiculous statements like that?OCDuPalais wrote:Spent 6 weeks in Qatar this time last year and can state that it is, without doubt, the sh!test place I have ever cycled. It has NO redeeming features. The temperature did not dip below 33c in that entire time - and I mean at any point; day or night. Amongst others, I was working with some Indians, Afghans, Iranians and Australians and they were ALL banging on about the dreadful heat...
The deal has been done for the 2016 Worlds, so I guess it's too late to move them...
The landscape is utterly barren... and culturally/spiritually it felt like being in Western film set or a theme park, where if you peer round the back, you'll see the workmen hoisting pulleys and operating great big façades...
The only reason anyone goes there is if they're being paid.
Unless the price is right, I'll never go there again out of principle.0
