Different Race, Same Victors; The Golden Era of Bik; What Now for Lappartient; A New Stage Race for America; PE Investment in Sports Continues; Thuringen Women's Race Cancelled ....
Key Takeaways:
● MSR: Different Race, Same Old Suspects?
● Is This the “Golden Era” of Bike Racing?
● Thüringen Ladies Tour Cancelled
● Lappartient: Back to Cycling Now?
● A New Stage Race in America?
● Private Equity Interest in Sports Continues to Grow
Yes, we’ve said this before. But the now-longstanding trend of only a small handful of riders winning all of the sport’s biggest men’s races continues. Mathieu van der Poel shrugged off a searing attack from Tadej Pogačar on the Cipressa, beating both him and Filippo Ganna in a three-up sprint to win his second Milan-Sanremo title in the last three years. With that win, just three individual riders have won 16 out of the 17 major one-day races over the last two and a half years (Van der Poel, Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel). The outlying single winner was Jasper Philipsen, who only won with the help of his teammate Van der Poel. As we've previously noted, the same handful of riders are also now slowly devouring most of the sport’s biggest stage races. In fact, the best move for riders not included in this Galáctico-tier might be to take the “if you can’t beat them, join them” path. For example, Jhonatan Narváez, one of the only riders to beat Pogačar in 2024, was a key domestique for Pogačar on Saturday, presumably jumping from Ineos last year with the assumption that being on the same team as Pogačar might eventually allow him to ride clear – when Pogačar’s rivals key in on him in some major race later on.
One of the main reasons for this consolidation of winners is that this handful of top riders takes matters into their own hands much further from the finish line than was previously thought possible. Van der Poel and Ganna may have been able to follow the initial audacious attack from Pogačar on the Cipressa, but it instantly pulverized the surviving peloton, and immediately eliminated the chances of any rider not able to generate in excess of seven watts per kilo for the ten-minute climb. Large groups at the end of major one-day races are a rarity, and crafty and quick riders like Magnus Cort or Mads Pedersen, who could theoretically have won in a reduced bunch sprint, aren’t even given the opportunity to drag Pogačar or Van der Poel into the mud in the final kilometers. Most tactical wrinkles are simply ironed out of the equation with the race moving at near-nuclear speed. Pogačar’s decision to attack, far earlier than any other favored rider since Marco Pantani in the 1999 Sanremo, has completely re-defined how the usually formulaic finale played out – pitting the three strongest riders in the race in a thrilling head-to-head-to-head battle. This past weekend’s edition will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the best in recent history, and may change how the race is contested in the future.
Van der Poel’s win over Pogačar re-ignited the race between the two to be the best current one-day racer – and potentially of all time. While Pogačar has won four out of the last six meetings against Van der Poel in major one-day races, Saturday’s victory saw Van der Poel claim his seventh Monument win, tying Pogačar for the most Monument victories amongst active riders (and both are already tied at seventh all-time). Even more impressive than their number of wins is that both riders have a statistically staggering 63% podium rate amongst every Monument they have started, and both have shockingly high win rates: Van der Poel at 37% and Pogačar at 44%. Eddy Merckx, the best rider of all-time who put up win totals deemed impossible to match in modern cycling, had a 61% podium rate and 40% win rate at the same point in his career (albeit with a higher 33 start, 13 win ratio). This underscores the fact that we are watching some of the best bike racers of all time during this golden era.
“Dominance” might be trend in men’s racing, but “balanced” goes a long way to describe the renaissance being experienced in the Women’s WorldTour. Stronger teams and the continued emergence of the next generation of Women's racing stars were on full display in a tactically astute MSR edition. The top teams took prominent rotations at the front of an incredibly fast opening act of the race to dissuade attacks until the final climbs, with all the fireworks coming on the Poggio. An attack and counter by Juliette Labous and Demi Vollering of FDJ could not dislodge or disrupt the well-organized SD-Worx train or Puck Pieterse’s (Fenix) skillful descending, and Elisa Longo Borghini’s (Lidl-Trek) daring attack at the bottom of the descent was neutralized. Lorena Wiebes (SDWorx-Protime) then took World Champion teammate Lotte Kopecky’s perfect lead out for an emphatic win, edging a resurgent Marianne Vos (Visma-Lab). We hope the fireworks continue as the WWT northern classics commence.
Despite the action-filled start to women’s road racing this season and increased viewership, there was a big hit to the calendar when the organizers of the Thüringen Ladies Tour canceled the 2025 edition. A public funding shortfall of €200,000 was cited last week as the primary reason for the late announcement concerning the popular and highly regarded event, which had run for 36 consecutive years. Politicians and race organization representatives lambasted the decision by the regional government, given that the funds had already been approved to support the event. This unfortunate development highlights the tenuous nature of planning and staging a bike race, in which a mix of private sponsor investment and public funding must come together to cover the myriad and exponentially increasing expenses to hold a road racing event. Women’s sports in general have been able to secure larger investments across the board in recent years, but cycling has lagged in key areas such as athlete development and event continuity. Thüringen held an important slot in the women’s calendar, even though it was not in the WWT: held just after the women’s Tour de Suisse, it would have provided a valuable block of racing ahead of the women’s Giro d’Italia and given smaller teams a competitive platform to earn points and exposure. Given recent other high profile cancellations in the men’s sport, including national tours like the Tour of Colombia, fresh approaches to the sport’s economics need to remain a high priority.
Our Special Issue last week focused on Rwanda’s increasingly embattled plans to host the 2025 UCI road World Championships, due to the country’s ongoing military actions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The humanitarian crisis now unfolding in the occupied region – and Rwanda’s border – threatens to destabilize Central Africa as the specter of a new civil war in the DRC displaces millions of refugees into neighboring countries and increases the likelihood of a multi-nation conflict. Thus far, the Netherlands has already stated that it will reduce its contingent (not send its Junior team), but two other developments are worth noting: Belgium and Rwanda expelled each others’ diplomatic staff last week, and this followed an earlier European Parliament referendum to cancel the event altogether due to Rwanda’s role as the conflict aggressor. Although the referendum isn’t binding among the Parliament’s member states, the diplomatic row with a cycling powerhouse like Belgium increases the likelihood of other nations following suit and abstaining or boycotting the event. A rumored “Plan B,” which has neither been confirmed or denied by the UCI as yet, would have the World Championships moved to the international federation’s Aigle, Switzerland headquarters (it had been the planned site of the COVID-affected 2020 races).
After campaigning hard for the job, and generating much speculation within pro cycling, UCI President David Lappartient was able to garner just four votes (out of 97 cast) in last week’s voting for the Presidency of the IOC. (We will have more commentary on the victor, Olympic swimmer and Zimbabwean Sports Minister Kirsty Coventry – the youngest ever IOC President and the first women to hold the job – in future weeks.) We speculated earlier that Lappartient may have delayed any kind of public or decisive action regarding the World Championship concerns until after the IOC vote had been determined. But now, with barely six months left to replan the event, will he have enough time to pivot and ensure that a successful 2025 World Championship remains on the calendar? And should he fumble this ball, will he be able to restore confidence in his ability to guide the UCI in the coming years? One would assume that he will switch course and run for his third consecutive UCI term this fall.
There was unexpected and improbable news this week – seemingly out of the clear blue sky – about a possible new UCI stage race in Colorado. Announced by a heretofore unknown British company named Infinite Events Group, the proposed event would commence in 2026 and run in the September timeframe, bridging the gap from the current Maryland Cycling Classic to the Canadian WorldTour events in Quebec. Although the organizers indicated that they had the support of both Colorado Governor Jared Polis as well as USA Cycling, none of the company’s principals have apparently so much as set foot in Colorado thus far. The news was greeted with surprise and disbelief by almost all observers, most of whom pointed out that prior major professional Colorado bike races of the past managed to survive over the longer term. Joe Lindsey of the Escape Collective summed up the skepticism, noting that the entity was just formed a few years ago, that it has no employees and lists a single British pound as its current assets, has no active website, has never put on any events and has no sponsors lined up. Other than that – cue the cynicism – all systems are go. Behind the scenes most officials were highly doubtful, suggesting that this might be a wild “straw man” idea tossed out into the marketing ether to see whether it might possibly attract any potential sponsors, upon which it might be able to actually build. Although all parties would love to see a new professional stage race in the United States, we’re not holding our breath on this one.
The trend towards greater private equity investment in sports continues to gather momentum and attract new money. Although most larger franchise sports once eschewed private equity players and banned them from team ownership, now almost all leagues allow at least partial stakes. Even the NFL has now joined the other major sports – baseball, hockey and basketball – to allow PE firms to hold equity in their teams. Soccer, mixed martial arts and Formula 1 racing also have heavy private equity participation. The movement towards PE began in earnest after Bain Capital’s failed attempt to acquire all of professional hockey in 2005, with the first true investments being made soon after. As pro teams continued to appreciate in value, they attracted more attention from professional and institutional investors rather than traditional private parties, and today most of the professional leagues allow PE firms to own up to 30% of a team. NFL team values today average almost $6 billion and the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics recently sold for $6 billion, and so it isn’t hard to understand why these firms are eager to take a bigger piece in the sport. Unfortunately, that investment interest has not yet extended to much smaller niche sports like cycling, which are still hard-pressed to show a business model which can generate the kind of financial returns which would attract similar investment parties; cycling is still a labor of love for wealthy individuals, not a way to make money.