Race Safety Concerns; NCL to "Pause" Operations; Prize Money for Olympic Athletes; New Doping Positives; Redlands Events; Women's Basketball ... and Cycling?
Key Takeaways:
● Race Safety Concerns Abound
● NCL “Pauses Operations”
● Olympic Track and Field Athletes to Win Prize Money …
● … Despite a Wave of Doping Positives
● Redlands and New Growler Road Race
● NCAA Basketball: Women’s Sports Take Center Stage
Last week’s transition between Flanders and Roubaix – the hillier and less cobbled Brabantse Pijl race – dropped hints that the women’s Ardennes week of Amstel Gold, Fleche-Wallonne, and Liege could be cycling’s most exciting race line-up of the year. At B-P, Elisa Longo Borghini powered away from an improving Demi Vollering for an emphatic solo win, but the field sprint behind again showed an increasing balance of power. Amstel Gold was a mixed affair; an unfortunate accident delayed both the men and women and blunted some of the race’s usual character. However, that balance kept the field relatively compact; in a mad dash to the line, Lorena Wiebes (SDWorx-Protime) took an excellent lead-out and seemed poised for the win, but raised her arms prematurely, allowing veteran Marianne Vos of Visma-LAB to snatch victory with a perfectly-timed bike throw. Wiebes’ action raises the question: why do bike racers make this elementary mistake seemingly so often? Even as cycling continues to evolve with advanced training, nutrition, and equipment, the basic fundamentals of the sport – like simply sprinting through the finish line, or taking risk-averse decisions to minimize crashes – perhaps aren’t being emphasized enough.
The men’s Amstel race, won by Tom Pidcock, demonstrated that Mathieu van der Poel doesn’t have a hold over all the classics events after all – again suggesting that earlier rumors we mentioned about the “death of racing tactics” have been greatly exaggerated. Reports had Van der Poel returning to Spain to train this week, as he did before his recent victories at Flanders and Roubaix. This coming weekend, all eyes will be on MvdP as he lines up at Liege-Bastogne-Liege against previous winner Tadej Pogačar and attempts to win three straight monuments.
Meanwhile, at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup events in Mairiporã, Brazil, Americans enjoyed unprecedented success, with Christopher Blevens notching an extremely rare American World Cup XCO win, and two American women, Savilia Blunk and Haley Batten finishing on the podium. With two other American Women finishing inside the top ten, Kelsey Urban in 8th and Kate Courtney 10th, the U.S. had its best showing at an MTB World Cup weekend outside of North America in years. (It’s worth noting that many of these athletes started in the popular NICA high school MTB league, which boasts over 30,000 kids racing in more than 30 states – arguably the world’s largest grassroots bike racing program.) The weekend’s results set up a compelling fight for the two available and highly-coveted Olympic spots. Hopefully, the process won’t turn into yet another legal battle, as we’ve seen multiple times in recent Olympic cycles.
Not surprisingly to most observers of American cycling, the National Cycling League (NCL) announced that it will “pause operations” for the 2024 season, while it ostensibly attempts to rebuild for next year. While cycling fans were hopeful that the league would be successful, many were skeptical of the business plan from the outset. And in American cycling, “pausing operations” typically means “canceling for good” – as we have previously seen in the case of the US Pro Challenge, the Tour of California, and many others. As we reported last year, there were as many as four other criterium “leagues” (the NCL, the CRIT Championship Tour, a vaguely planned European-based “Twilight” series, as well as a USA Cycling-sponsored set of events) all trying to compete with the country’s more established American Criterium Cup – a loose affiliation of ten different criterium races around the country. The domestic audience is clearly nowhere near large enough – nor are there enough athletes, sponsors, coaches or host cities – to support this level of activity. Hence, there were apparently multiple attempts to merge at least two of the new start-up leagues to strengthen financial and operational foundations. But insiders report that management conflicts and ownership disputes between the two primary start-up efforts precluded any efforts to combine forces. (Additionally, as in the case of pro cycling’s top-level WorldTour, it may be worth asking whether fans may care more about individual events than more hastily constructed “series” of events.)
Following the recent pair of horrific and highly disruptive crashes at Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Itzulia Basque Country stage race, some of the sport’s high-profile stakeholders – including Jim Ratcliffe and Richard Plugge this week – are speaking out, and pointing out that not only is there a dangerous for cyclists, but that this trend is also bad for business. However, outside of a fairly vague diagnosis of the problem and a few event corrections which don’t amount to much more than window dressing, there seems to be a paucity of real ideas for how to make the sport safer are fewer and far between. Nor was it a good look for the sport when it was announced today that the multi-stakeholder “SafeR” organization – which was formed with the sole purpose of improving race safety – terminated its CEO. Additionally, it seems difficult to even glean basic information around the status of the highest-profile rider involved in the Basque Country crashes, with GCN reporting that Jonas Vingegaard is still currently hospitalized in northern Spain following surgery to repair a broken collarbone, and that even his father is struggling to get information regarding his current condition. With his lung injuries apparently keeping him from flying back home, it doesn’t appear that we will see Vingegaard racing, at least at his top level, for quite some time.
A major announcement by the President of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, may have stolen significant thunder from the IOC and potentially upended the Olympic sporting model in the process. Approximately $2.4 million USD of World Athletics revenues will be used to pay each of the Paris 2024 track and field gold medalists a $50K bonus for their efforts. This will be the first time that an international sporting federation will directly remunerate athletes for performance regardless of national affiliation, which is something that the IOC has so far refused to: pay the athletes competing in its games. In one sense, Coe’s progressive stance may be exactly the kind of shake-up politically and personality-wise that the IOC needs when its current President, Thomas Bach, “abdicates” the role. And as the President of the largest IF in the IOC’s fiefdom, Coe may be gunning for Bach’s crown ahead of other suitors like the UCI’s David Lappartient. But in another sense, Coe may be creating a sporting crisis because the direct monetary value of winning an Olympic medal – in track and field sports which can be contested by even the poorest of competitors, hailing from the poorest of communities and countries – may become an even greater incentive for doping than ever before. And others question whether it will improve the level of competition and interest in the Olympic events at all.
Regarding doping in World Athletics, a wave of Athletics Integrity Unity (AIU) provisional suspensions, first instance tests, and first instance case decisions since January contains a vast array of targeted testing positives, whereabouts (ADAMS) violations, and retested samples from prior years. The number and the names are not insignificant, with former record holders and two new 2012 London Olympics medalists caught via retested samples. Many critics have pointed out that this wave is actually just the low hanging fruit; for example, athletes based in Kenya have been rumored to be training in a doping haven for years and WADA has already had to step in regarding poor Spanish anti-doping governance (and may need to take a stronger stance elsewhere). Could cycling be similarly affected in this Olympic year? Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) testing is one deterrent, as is a renewed focus on anonymous whistleblower reporting channels. However, WADA recently published its 2022 testing statistics, and while cycling was a low marker, the highest prevalence of positives was in the Americas. We hope the International Testing Agency (ITA, which handles cycling’s testing) is ready, because just like in athletics, a rider’s commercial sponsorship and contract incentives heighten the upsides of Olympic exposure – actually increasing pressure to cheat in an Olympic year – and increases risks to pro cycling’s fragile sponsorship ecosystem.
The venerable Redlands Classic, running for its 38th year, took place last week. The event is something of an institution, and a rite of passage for young American pros who want to prove themselves. This year’s edition was no different – with the men’s race was dominated, unsurprisingly, by Taylor Stites and his Project Echelon team winning four out of five stages. On the women’s side, Nadia Gontova (DNA Racing) won the race, but Cynisca Cycling’s Mara Roldan took two stages and announced herself to the world as a force to be reckoned with.
While the history of the Redlands Classic is admirable, the event still feels like it’s being run in 1985 – with minimal live streaming, hours-long delays to get results, and with no organized team pit area for fans, the race is almost impossible to follow unless you’re standing at the finish line. We live in a digital era, and with fans all over the world, live streaming is clearly a prerequisite for a pro bike race these days. Races cannot expect to land significant sponsorship without real storytelling assets, yet much of American bike racing feels like it’s stuck in a time warp and unable to execute media at even a basic level.
On the same weekend, former pro Levi Leipheimer put on The Growler road race as part of his Levi’s Gran Fondo event. With almost 140 miles of racing and 13,000 feet of climbing – and taking place in pouring rain – the event was an exercise in survival for both men and women. Many top gravel pros showed up to race, and some top road racers (Cynisca Cycling’s Lauren Stephens was 2nd) showed up as well. This may have been America’s most challenging single day road race, and one veteran pro said “it was one of my hardest days ever on the bike.” The event featured a prize purse of $50,000, which also immediately makes it one of the richest races in North America.
The University of South Carolina’s victory over Iowa in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament championship was the most watched basketball game on the planet since 2019 – full stop. The average audience for the women’s game was 18.7 million (peak 24 million!), compared with the men’s at 14.8 million. There are two takeaways to consider for women’s cycling. First, it proved that a strong narrative can be leveraged to increase interest in women’s sports; the prospect of a Final Four rematch between Iowa star Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese (Louisiana State) saturated sports talk shows throughout the season. Those kinds of rivalries and relatable personalities are central to women’s pro cycling as well. But more importantly, broadcasters committed to a wider selection of games, especially in prime-time slots usually reserved for Division 1 NCAA men’s games, to give fans the content they demanded. Advertisement and marketing initiatives surrounding NCAA women’s basketball have reached new peaks, and with proper coverage focus, live coverage commitment, and secure broadcast channels, it’s not a stretch to think that the same trends could happen in women’s cycling in future years – if the governance bodies are up to the challenge.