Key Takeaways:
● Pogačar’s Streak Continues in Switzerland
● Reusser Takes Women’s Race
● Sports Focus Turns to World Cup
● The Dangers of On-Line Gambling
● U.S. National Road Racing Championships
Tadej Pogačar picked up a victory in one of the remaining key cycling events which he had not yet won – the Tour de Suisse. Pogačar made it look easy by starting the race with a signature solo ride, effortlessly (at least by his expressions on camera) carving out a two-plus minute gap on the field. He also won the time trial on day four (see below) by a razor’s edge. But he saved his best for the race’s last day, waiting until there was only 9 kilometers to go before turning up the power and gradually reeling in all of the members of an intrepid breakaway, winning his third stage of the five day event. Lenny Martinez of Bahrain-Victorious was caught just 800 meters from the finish, and his incredulous facial expression at the finish summed up what everyone else was thinking despite his impressive second place on the day: “How can you beat the best when they get better?” Rounding out the GC podium were Richard Carapaz, at more than six minutes back, and Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek at almost seven minutes in arrears. Two Americans again made a strong showing: Brandon McNulty and Matthew Riccitello finished in sixth and seventh places overall respectively and are showing excellent form ahead of the Tour de France.
Elsewhere across Europe, a handful of other men’s pro races provided riders with valuable preparation for the Tour and teams with valuable exposure if they didn’t get an invite to France for July. The Tour of Belgium gave the rouleurs and sprinters ample proving ground, with several sprint train finishes and wins by the fast men, including a returning-to-form Biniam Girmay, Olav Kooij, Tim Merlier, and overall winner Jasper Philipsen. Over in Andorra, Tom Pidcock rode a furious finale on the climb to La Botella in the MoraBanc Clàssica, winning the race over Carlos Verona and Sepp Kuss. And at the mountainous Tour of Slovenia, Florian Lipowitz scalped two amazing stages and the overall while staking his claim for team leadership in July. But all eyes are on Slovenia’s greatest current sportsman; Pogačar appears to be in superb form as we approach the Tour in less than two weeks’ time, where he will seek his record-tying fifth victory. Given Jonas Vingegaard’s dominant performance at the recent Giro (and rumors of Remco Evenepoel’s impressive power numbers in his stealth leadup), it appears that the current era’s top GC riders are prepared to engage in a battle royale. Cycling fans should be the true winners.
Another one of cycling’s inimitable “tempests in a teapot” unfolded during the Tour de Suisse time trial. After ripping off the fastest time thus far in the sweltering 95 degrees Fahrenheit heat, Mathieu Van Der Poel decided to rip off his own jersey as well – to cool off while he waited in the (aptly-named) hot seat watching the race’s final participants. In the end, MvdP was beaten by Pogačar by less than a tenth of a second, but he seemed to win fan approval in addition to a rather ludicrous UCI fine of 500 Swiss francs. There was no comment for his sponsor Alpecin, which some analysts argued had lost valuable exposure time. The whole affair neatly encapsulated cycling’s often silly predicaments and unfounded assumptions. Rather than focusing the narrative on the human drama and a very tightly-contested event between two of the sports top stars, worried commentators wrung their hands over perhaps a few seconds of no team sponsor name on the screen and a hint or two of amorous innuendo – even after MvdP had coolly modeled the Alpecin logo for the previous 27 minutes. Then the UCI stepped in to levy a meaningless fine to “deal with” the situation. Sometimes, it seems like pro cycling can’t get out of its own way.
Marlen Reusser rode with precision and power to claim a hard-fought women’s Tour du Suisse, honoring her home-country fans with a native winner – repeating her 2025 victory and third in her career. As noted last week, the men’s and women’s races essentially shadowed each other across the five high-altitude stages. Riders like Elisa Longo Borghini (stage 2 winner), Zoe Backstedt (stage 3 winner), Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, and Kim Le Court Pienaar were dangerously positioned across the top 10 prior to the stage 4 time trial – which Reusser won with a powerful effort to take the leader’s jersey from Longo Borghini. But Reusser’s performance on “Queen” stage 5 was superlative, not just defending but going on the attack to win ahead of Cedrine Kerbaol and Niewiadoma-Phinney with the rest of the field trailing in with considerable time gaps. Her overall win once again demonstrated why Reusser is a contender in any high-stakes stage race on the women’s calendar and – should she remain healthy and stay upright on the road – could be the spoiler among the favorites at August’s Tour de France Femmes.
Meanwhile at the three-stage women’s Volta a Catalunya, won by rising star and Catalunya native Paula Blasi, evergreen racing star Marianne Vos sprinted to a popular final day victory in Madrid. This was perhaps the first multi-race weekend of the women’s calendar in which the team resources and fan attention was not spread too thin for competitive interest. Arguably, the Tour du Suisse had a deeper field but Blasi – racing without UAE teammate Longo Borghini who was in Switzerland – dominated the mountainous stage 2 finish to ice the race and raise her stock as the team’s potential team leader in France later this season. Catalunya’s spot in the calendar is a tough one; the Tour du Suisse has a higher Women’s WorldTour profile and shifting by a week would interfere with the European nations’ traditional pro national championship racing weekend. But there was at least one other important bright spot in the business of pro cycling this weekend as Reusser’s victory bolstered the profile of her beleaguered Movistar-sponsored team – which recently announced a potential departure from the sport when its title sponsorship contract ends in 2029.
All eyes might be on the ongoing World Cup but another big story concerning sports business has been rapidly developing in the U.S. over the last two weeks. Legislators in Washington D.C. have been debating the “Save College Sports” Act – which would set limits and broad regulations on collegiate sports. The momentum behind this bill has garnered wide bipartisan support, due to the proliferation of recent developments which have disrupted college sports – conference realignments, NIL and revenue sharing vehicles, player transfers, and player eligibility issues. These challenges are particularly acute in football and basketball, but could also affect a wide swath of other collegiate sports. The central issue is the conference realignment problem; in particular, the Big 10 and SEC have become financial juggernauts in the media licensing space. As a result, the smaller conferences are losing valuable players and air-time opportunities, and there is a concern that college sports could transform into an oligopoly-like structure. The bill in its current draft would allow the NCAA to pool all of the conferences’ media rights into a single revenue vehicle which would distribute more resources to women’s sports and an array of Olympic programs – all of which have been decimated by financial transformations in the dominant sports of men’s football and basketball. Whatever the final form of the bill – and whether it actually holds up to legal scrutiny which would provide college sports with a kind of antitrust exemption similar to Major League Baseball and the NFL – it could further reshape the elite sports landscape and potentially bolster the IOC’s position that it will not pay athletes for their appearances in the Olympic Games.
Online wagering continues to grow in popularity due in large part to the proliferation of prediction markets, and is causing a steep rise in gambling addiction. Researchers believe it is rapidly developing into a public health crisis. While prediction market and gambling platform users are wagering billions of dollars annually, bare minimum funding has left gambling addiction support services way in arrears. For example, California spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to combat tobacco and alcohol health issues, but only $9M for gambling addiction services – and many states have virtually no attention to or funding for this impending crisis. Proponents have a different view of the situation and point out that states like Colorado benefit widely from the taxation of online wagering, to funding nearly $140M in water conservation projects alone. Yet similar to California, that tax revenue is upside down when compared to how much the state allocates to gambling addiction intervention programs – just $2.5M as of late and certainly not enough to keep pace with the growing crisis.
While we have reported on this topic several times recently, this new finding is perhaps more timely given the revelation that elite collegiate quarterback Brendan Sorsby had wagered over $90,000 on sports during his prior seasons at Indiana and Cincinnati, including bets on his own team. Sorsby’s issues led to a stint in a gambling rehabilitation program, but also resulted in an NCAA playing ban due to his gambling issues. In a highly controversial move, Sorsby sued to regain his eligibility, and a pending appeal against him and his current school, Texas Tech, could have sown wider chaos. However, the controversy effectively ended this week, when he chose instead to turn pro in the supplemental NFL draft. But the central point – an athlete addicted to gambling via online platforms, and potentially compromising performances to influence outcomes – cannot be understated. As more athletes are prominently featured in marketing and as the platforms gain broader prominence through massive sports advertising placements, troubles will only continue.
The USA Cycling Professional Road National Championships took place in Charleston, West Virginia last week. There was some great racing, and worthy champions – but the standout showing was former MTB World Champion Kate Courtney, who confirmed her status as America’s most versatile bike racer in the women’s elite race. Quinn Simmons repeated his 2025 title by winning the men’s elite race. A couple of notable observations stood out to us during the week. First was the number of strong road racers who started in the NICA high school MTB league. Courtney and Simmons came up this development path, as did several other top finishers. With over 35,000 racers (counting breakaway leagues) NICA is the world’s largest youth bike racing program. This scholastic racing system represents a huge competitive advantage to the United States in developing the entire sport, and participants should be offered earlier opportunities and avenues to get involved in other bike racing disciplines like road racing as well.
The number of women taking part in the National Championships was surprisingly small, with only 52 starters in the elite road race, 44 in the elite criterium, 20 in the U23 road race and 17 in the junior road race. As we have frequently noted over recent years, women’s road racing is doing great in Europe at the highest level, but it continues to struggle in the United States. Part of the challenge is undoubtedly the decreasing number of American road races. But haphazard and overlapping scheduling of key races is also a problem in both Europe and the United States. For example, the USAC Nationals conflicted with not only the domestic Tour of America’s Dairyland but also with four women’s races in Europe, in particular the Volta a Catalunya and Tour de Suisse mentioned above. Indeed, those four races also conflicted heavily with one another and featured distinctly diluted fields. The pro racing calendar takes a pause these next two weeks while many other countries host their national championships. But USA Cycling’s national championships are essentially a week out of sync, and therefore basically in competition with all of these other races thus diluting the potential for full fields. This needs to change, not only for the sake of greater competitiveness and participation in key events, but also for the racers who must choose between earning themselves and their teams valuable UCI points to stay relevant in the Women’s WorldTour, or competing for the honors of Stars and Stripes jerseys.