Grand Tours vs. UCI with the cyclist as loser
Muscogee Blue
Posts: 4
The three Grand Tours have squared off against the UCI and as usual the only loser will be the cyclist and the public. The Grand Tours think only of their potential profits and the UCI thinks of nothing but its teams. The professional cyclist is caught in the middle and the public interest is ignored as usual. Any cyclist can now be banned on a whim by either the Grand Tours or the UCI. It only takes suspicion--that, and in the case of Armstrong, the dislike and jealously of both WADA and the Grand Tour's in house tabloid, L'Equipe. Who's the losers: the professional cyclist and the public spectators who love the sport.
Somebody has to put an end to this infighting before they destroy cycling. The obvious entity to do this would be the professional cyclist union. That is, if they had one. Or, if at least they had one that had the best interests of the cyclists at heart. To reiterate the obvious: Neither the Grand Tour or the UCI is anything without the cyclist. All it would take to shake things up would be a simple work stoppage (and not a one time stoppage like what happened in the 1998 TDF). Among other things, the professional cyclist union should themselves set the criteria for who can compete in the professional tour and they should demand an independent outside testing laboratory that is subject to peer scrutiny and not under the control of WADA. The cyclists need certainty as to qualifications and they need a lab whose work they can trust. They certainly can't trust the Grand Tours or UCI to look out for their best interests or cycling's best interests and they surely can't trust WADA's lab. The labs are nothing more than a mouthpiece for Dick Pound.
The cyclists union better do something and do it quickly. As a spectator and amateur cyclist, I'm tired of having the best cyclists run off the tour by the charlatans that run the Grand Tours and the UCI. Get a decent union and a decent lab and cycling has a rosy future. Without a union, the Tours and the UCI will destroy the sport. Professional cyclists have to save the sport, nobody else can or will.
Somebody has to put an end to this infighting before they destroy cycling. The obvious entity to do this would be the professional cyclist union. That is, if they had one. Or, if at least they had one that had the best interests of the cyclists at heart. To reiterate the obvious: Neither the Grand Tour or the UCI is anything without the cyclist. All it would take to shake things up would be a simple work stoppage (and not a one time stoppage like what happened in the 1998 TDF). Among other things, the professional cyclist union should themselves set the criteria for who can compete in the professional tour and they should demand an independent outside testing laboratory that is subject to peer scrutiny and not under the control of WADA. The cyclists need certainty as to qualifications and they need a lab whose work they can trust. They certainly can't trust the Grand Tours or UCI to look out for their best interests or cycling's best interests and they surely can't trust WADA's lab. The labs are nothing more than a mouthpiece for Dick Pound.
The cyclists union better do something and do it quickly. As a spectator and amateur cyclist, I'm tired of having the best cyclists run off the tour by the charlatans that run the Grand Tours and the UCI. Get a decent union and a decent lab and cycling has a rosy future. Without a union, the Tours and the UCI will destroy the sport. Professional cyclists have to save the sport, nobody else can or will.
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, Verdana" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Muscogee Blue</i>
Professional cyclists have to save the sport, nobody else can or will.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">That's genius. The last time I checked turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
<b>Professional</b> cyclists won't save the sport. They'll just take the money. As always.0 -
When's the last time you saw a club owner or a Grand Tour owner on a bike. There ain't nobody but the riders who can save cycling.0
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The motives of the 3 GT owner's and their commercial concerns will always have greater leverage that the political machinations of the UCI who are only interested in their self-serving personal agendas. The team sponsors will always fall behind the GT's as that provides them the shop-window and media coverage for their products - the UCI is just a quaint side-show. Until the UCI realises it's fairly impotent, we'll just end up with a stand-off. Potential consequences include the formation of a new professional cycling league that will drive a schizm through the UCI and likely to lead to potential disruption to Olympic Cycling. The trouble is that the UCI have little credibility in the eyes of the majority of cyclistsMake mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..0
