Scottish Festival of Cycling Marred By Protest; Bronny James Event a Warning? Lappartient Threatens Britain; NCL Developments; Women's Cycling Shouldn't Be Modeled After Men's
Key Takeaways:
● A Festival of Cycling in Scotland
● Bronny James Cardiac Event a Warning?
● Lappartient’s Subtle Threat to Great Britain
● Where is the NCL Headed?
● The Risks of Patterning Women’s Cycling After Men’s
● The Power and Potential of Women’s Cycling
The Men’s Road Race was the centerpiece of the UCI’s inaugural festival of cycling in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday – the first modern World Championships edition where all of cycling’s events have been combined into a single, Olympics-like platform to occur every four years. Even a nail-biting late crash couldn’t stop Mathieu van der Poel from riding clear of an elite front group, to win ahead of Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar – and show that perhaps his lackluster Tour de France was part of a deeper Worlds-centric plan. Despite the popular Dutch rider’s crowning achievement, many top-level teams and riders questioned the quality of the course, calling the final 140 kilometers of the race a “criterium,” and the “least beautiful World Championship course I've seen.” However, Glasgow delivered one of the most selective races in recent memory; only the world’s strongest, tactically astute and most skilled bike handlers were in the mix for victory. A whopping 8'30” separated the top twenty, and even reigning World Champion Remco Evenepoel lost the pace with his lack of front-of-the-pack positioning skills – a far cry from when he leveraged superior aerodynamics and power to easily win on a more open and traditional circuit in Australia last year.
The event was somewhat overshadowed by the actions of a climate protest which stopped the race for over an hour, and whose participants glued themselves to the road, purportedly to bring attention to the fact that some cycling sponsors have large carbon footprints. The protest is a reminder of pro cycling's vulnerability to such disruptions – particularly relative to other sports. These types of protests are becoming more commonplace, and despite their intent, will likely have very little effect on cycling’s sponsorship landscape – particularly given the accelerating investment trend from fossil fuel-funded investment pools. Cycling event organizers need to have contingency plans for future protests that may not be as mild or that could threaten the safety and/or health of the riders involved in the race. For example, climate activists entered the track at last year’s British Grand Prix, creating a situation where Formula 1 drivers were nearly forced to put their lives in jeopardy to avoid the human obstacles.
As we reflect on the recently concluded and successful Tour de France Femmes, we wonder if there is a risk in anchoring all of women’s cycling too closely to the branding, narrative, and placement of this specific event, but more generally, should a growing women’s sport attempt to fashion itself after the men’s sport at all? TdFF winner Demi Vollering last week called for a final “show” stage – or non-competitive procession – on the final stage of the race, similar to the way the men’s race has typically wrapped up. Eventually, such a fan-friendly wrap up for a major event might seem appropriate, but the modern sports context and fan expectations actually run counter to such a sentiment. More and more sports demonstrate that closely contested finales are the top broadcast performers, and a processional parade like that on the Champs Elysees is an outlier. While this is an unpopular notion for a sport that values traditions, audiences are increasingly interested in action and an uncertain winner until the very end – a golden formula for Formula1, the NFL, and numerous other global sports enterprises. Women’s cycling is already the sport’s most exciting prospect, and it should maximize its competitive strengths and audience impact potential, rather than add a quantified weakness.
The National Cycling League (NCL) recently announced additional investments from a star lineup including NBA star Kevin Durant; it furthermore claimed that its inaugural Miami Beach event last spring generated $20 million in spending for the city. However, Velo ran an analysis that pushed back on some of these claims. At the same time as its recent press releases, the league simultaneously nixed one of its key planned events (Washington, D.C.), appears to have eliminated any mention of its $1 million prize purse from the official website, and saw a shake-up in its executive suite. The NCL also moved its final two events, Denver and Atlanta, from city centers to more remote areas – presumably to save costs – and apparently the only way to attend the Atlanta event at all is via a ridiculously expensive $200 VIP ticket. (This is roughly the same cost as premium NBA 100-level seats, and it’s hard to see very many fans forking over that kind of money to see a brand new bike race.) For those with experience promoting (or racing) cycling events, calendar trimming and changing prize purses are nothing new, but lately the NCL is starting to look more like an uncertain experiment than a new sports business unicorn.
A seemingly innocuous post on the recent cardiac event suffered by Bronny James – the son of NBA megastar LeBron James – provided an interesting long-form backdrop regarding the potential health impacts of doping on athletes. In particular, it suggests that users of various performance enhancement chemicals may face greater health risks if they are predisposed to adverse events like sudden cardiac death or conditions like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The article points out disparities in cardiac testing protocols and underrepresentation of African Americans in the scientific body of knowledge, but also leverages broad knowledge from pro cycling’s doping issues to show how our innovations and policies have failed to make much of an impact on many sports.
The author argues that professional sports – in which athletes negotiate a collective bargaining agreement to govern drug testing parameters – have become a factor in placing ever younger and impressionable athletes at undue risk from doping. Aspects like testing windows, the number of tests, and repercussions for avoiding tests are minimized in such agreements and players can potentially get “popped” only if egregiously skirting the rules. Ultimately, the article highlights that the prevailing mentality of most sports in general is, “why would I ever want an athlete to fail a drug test?” Undeniably, positive tests hurt a sport’s popularity, as experienced in pro cycling’s scandals and in the post-Russian Olympic cheating era. But similarly, anti-doping policies which lack athlete representation and equity seem equally upside down due to the lack of transparency, gaps in due process, and pervasive privacy issues. One must consider: is the intersection of anti-doping policy and public health finally ready for wider debate?
In a little noticed sound bite prior to this week’s world championships, UCI President Lappartient appeared to threaten Great Britain over the participation of Russian athletes. The U.K. had earlier recommended that athletes from Russia and Belarus could only compete in Britain if they were "self-funded" and provided a written declaration of neutrality. Lappartient accused the country’s sports body of showing a lack of faith in the background checks carried out by the UCI and suggested that they might be jeopardizing their chances of hosting future events. This doesn’t seem like a good way to make friends, particularly with a country that has been one of the biggest funders of UCI events over the last 20 years.
Further on the topic of Lappartient’s words and actions, the UCI made a series of declarations after its annual pre-Worlds congregation that proclaimed progress in key domains, although the view below the surface treatment raises new questions. The announcement that multiple division tiers would be coming to the Women’s WorldTour a year early will help stratify the talent and investment expectations across the sport and elevating the WWT stakeholder organizations to have a seat on the Pro Cycling Council (PCC) is an overdue improvement. However, it is unclear if these PCC representatives will have any voting influence on the all-important UCI Management Committee – which essentially controls the professional sport and has often bypassed PCC input. It also remains to be seen if team and race owners will be willing to downgrade to fit the tiered model. And within women’s cycling, a new UCI push for “integrity” omits a key and necessary action: convening an independent commission to fully dive into how the sport has treated women historically, including the roles that current UCI, team ownership, and race organization figures may have played in that culture.
Also in the declarations, the UCI awarded its “Bike City'' label to several locations, including Montreal, regions in Austria and – honoring the World’s host – South Scotland. But the UCI also curiously included its home city of Aigle in the mix. While Scotland has historically hosted great MTB and CX races, and Austria has many premier alpine recreation destinations, the inclusion of Aigle is puzzling because most of its contributions are development programs that are embedded in the UCI headquarters itself. The proclamation for Aigle highlights its “global vision focusing on sport, energy and mobility,” which seems noble until one realizes this rural “city” has less than ten thousand residents. Montreal, with nearly two million residents, is a one-of-a-kind case study of a city responding to decades of community activism and investing tens of millions of dollars to reinvent a transportation infrastructure that prioritizes cycling; in comparison, Aigle’s award seems downright silly. This announcement once again makes Lappartient seem more focused on his future in the Olympic movement than on the UCI or cycling business.
A wonderful feature story from America’s heartland highlights the power and potential within women’s cycling – and provides a literal blueprint as to how we can engage with, market to, and empower women in the sport. The IU Health Momentum Indy Divas cycling club has provided a space for women of all abilities to ride together, network, and support each other on a variety of weekly routes, including a recent outing with USA Cycling board member and Indiana Pacers NBA legend Reggie Miller. The article follows the stories of several of the professional women who embody the group and its ethos; and by “professional,” these are leaders at the pinnacle of medical, business, and military fields who were disenchanted and disenfranchised by traditional men-led cycling clubs and chose to congregate and thrive under their own banner. In many ways, that story of building a community in a male-run sport mirrors their experiences of rising to the top of their professional work environments. In exploring those themes of gender and inclusivity, we see how our current version of organized cycling often misses the mark when it comes to engaging women in the conversation. Stakeholders, take notice – we can always do more together to build a stronger sport.