Surprises at Amstel Gold; Latest Perspective on "One Cycling;" Is Analytics Making Sport Less Interesting? Growler Race a Success; Micro-Dosing Questions ...

Key Takeaways:

● Surprise at Amstel Gold

● One Cycling: Will the Radio Silence Be Broken?

● Are Analytics Making Sports Too Predictable?

● Levi’s Growler Race A Growing Success

● Is Micro-Dosing Affecting Cycling?

The Amstel Gold Race is the only one-day WorldTour race in cycling-mad Netherlands but it may have delivered the best race on the men’s calendar so far in 2025. At first, it appeared to be the “same old, same old” when Tadej Pogačar launched a flyer with over forty kilometers remaining – i.e., a continuation of the long streak of one-day races being won on solo attacks. However, a late chase by Remco Evenepoel with Lidl-Trek’s Mattias Skjelmose tactfully in tow turned the race on its head. With Pogačar caught, the riders contested a three-up sprint and Skjelmose emerged as the unlikely winner in a photo finish. The win not only delivered a major one-day victory from outside of the extremely small circle of usual suspects, but it thrilled fans with a nail-biting sprint finale. However, it was hardly a blueprint for ushering in a new and more competitive era in the sport, despite demonstrating that mere mortals can indeed occasionally win against the sport’s Galácticos. The 24-year-old Skjelmose’s unlikely win illustrated how all the stars must align if the trend is to be broken. In this case, a heavy favorite like Pogačar had to make mistakes, a talented foil like Evenepoel had to make a perfect chase, and the overlooked underdog had to make all the right decisions to be in for the kill. The women’s race proved to be unpredictable in the Limburg province’s hills, and it took a brilliant late attack by Ellen van Dijk and former EU champion Mischa Bredewold for the race to be decided– with Bredewold soloing over the Cauberg for the win and Van Dijk taking the sprint for second ahead of Puck Pieterse.

An interesting storyline from Sunday is that Skjelmose wasn’t considered to be a rider worth marking late in a race, given that he has won a major WorldTour stage race (Tour de Suisse) and finished top five at a Grand Tour before the age of 24. The fact that a rider of his caliber could navigate into an advantageous lead group position without setting off peloton-wide alarms shows just how much men’s cycling’s expectations have been warped by the historic exploits of riders like Pogačar, Van der Poel and Evenepoel. A decade ago, a rider with the results profile of Skjelmose would have been showered with praise and intensely recruited as a future star of the sport. Yet there seems to be little room to celebrate such hugely impressive feats from under-appreciated but promising young riders in the landscape of modern cycling. Nevertheless, Skjelmose’s breakthrough ride shows how young riders who sit outside of all the fanfare can turn this lack of attention into an advantage – even if it marks him out in the future.

Despite the numerous accounts of revolutionary change coming to the sport via the widely-watched “One Cycling” initiative, we note that there has been little if any indication of movement or progress in the supposed project. Some of the first breathless reports of transformative change – supposedly to be backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF – are now over a year and a half old, and more recent declarations that the project was imminent seem also to have been premature. And there is yet another report out just today, suggesting that some form of the project could possibly be initiated before this year’s Tour de France. Other new stories suggest that teams would only receive about €1 million a year (which would hardly be revolutionary) and that funds could be curtailed if ASO does not participate – and of course ASO has consistently been opposed to this, and various previous efforts to reform the sport. Hence, considering that we have heard these narratives of imminent change several times before, we remain a bit skeptical. We might also remember, for example, the long-anticipated merger between the PGS and LIV golf – also backed by the Saudis – which also still hasn’t happened.

We don’t have much inside knowledge, but our best bet is that sophisticated investors are simply discovering that pro cycling lacks a sustainable and recurring revenue model. Despite the admirable and widely agreed-upon objectives of the proposed project – most of which have been extensively discussed in the past – the sport still lacks a viable roadmap and collaborative framework that can make it an attractive financial venture to sports investors hungry for profitable opportunities. This long understood and fundamental shortcoming suggests two key predictions as we continue to await any actual progress on the One Cycling initiative: (1) until stakeholders address this spectrum of challenges which limit growth and profitability, major investment windfalls will probably continue to elude cycling, and (2) the cycling media is likely to continue trading on the hope that this project will someday “succeed” in some manner. (We would also note that continuous news leaks on the status of the project are probably giving potential investors pause – to consider the confidentiality and integrity of their involvement.)

Sports analytics have revolutionized modern competition in multiple dimensions. Following Major League Baseball’s “Moneyball” deep dive into sports data and sabermetric analytical approaches more than twenty years ago, athletes across all sports have gradually migrated towards maximizing their performance and style of play using enhanced analytical modeling. Indeed, the quest for performance perfection via “marginal gains” has led some observers to worry that the practice is making sport too predictable and robbing its beauty and uncertainty. Where does cycling sit in this data revolution? Our sport has benefited from advances in training methodologies derived from athlete performance modeling analytics, from the perspective of professional riders and their coaching staff, but also in the consumer marketplace as coaches and service providers enhance their offerings to help average cyclists improve their riding experience.

Yet the “on-the-road” cycling analytics remains relatively unexplored – and a major legal case in the sports wagering capital of Las Vegas may determine how and if that information can be monetized in the future. Some websites already provide subscription-based access to deep troves of sports information from player statistics and tendencies to success rates of game strategies in specific situations. All of this information can be used to set odds and place wagers on sporting events and “sports events contracts” – a type of betting on the likelihood of a sporting outcome such as, “who will win the Tour de France.” However, it is illegal under an archaic 1961 U.S. law known as the Interstate Wire Act to share information across state lines that provides advantages for placing bets on these sports events contracts. Thus, sports betting platforms may be adversely affected by an upcoming ruling on the matter, especially as this is popular practice among wagering enthusiasts.

Only a few websites in cycling provide general win statistics and performance trending information that help fans better understand and follow their favorite riders. But a deeper analytic forefront in pro cycling is looming; for example, consider the absolute analytics of GC rider climbing performances at particular gradients and VAM (average ascent velocity) during intermediate climbs of important stage races, such that teams can develop scientifically-informed racing strategies to isolate other teams’ star riders on finishing climbs. This may be happening at a small scale already but given the trove of data already available and the power of AI to rapidly organize and synthesize probabilities, modern cycling will continue to evolve on the competitive field – although its wagering business might have to wait for a Nevada court’s opinion.

Saturday was the second edition of the Levi’s Granfondo Growler professional race, held in Northern California’s beautiful Sonoma County. The Growler is a recent addition to Levi Leipheimer’s long running fondo event and featured a 137-mile paved course with almost 14,000 feet of climbing, and surprisingly the $156,000 USD prize purse made it the world’s richest one day bike race, and by some margin. (Yes, you’re reading that correctly: more than famous monuments like the Tour of Flanders – $65,000 total prize money this year and Paris-Roubaix – about $120,000 this year.) The Growler organizers took some of the defining characteristics of a big gravel race – equal prize purse for men and women, the same tough course for everyone – and applied those things to a road race. They also created a competent and engaging live broadcast, with Matt Stephens and Hannah Walker calling the race. The women’s race on Saturday was won by Lauren Stephens, and the men’s race by Keegan Swenson – who might arguably be America’s most successful bike racer at the moment, pound for pound, and cross-discipline. While there was some racing on open roads – which looked dangerous and may need future remediation – expect this race to grow if organizers find a way to attract top WT riders from the European peloton. Regardless, the race is a promising sign of life to an otherwise stagnant American road racing scene.

The Australian Academy Of Science suggested in a recent article that EPO, human growth hormone and anabolic steroids are the most common micro-dosed PEDs abused in professional running, with some only detectable in human blood for less than six hours. Even with the current Whereabouts athlete location and testing procedures in place, it is patently easy for top athletes to engage in this practice. One report said that various studies have found that “infusing as little as 130 ml red blood cells or injecting 9 IU × kg bw-1 rhEpo three times per week for 4 weeks improves endurance performance ~4%-6%.” Translated into English, this means that athletes using virtually undetectable levels of micro-dosing could potentially improve their performance by up to 6% - a massive advantage in elite endurance sports competitions, like distance running or cycling. Although this report focused on professional running, one has to wonder if this practice is having a similar effect in professional cycling given our history of “innovation” in medical preparation and transgressions discovered by doping controls or whistleblower revelations.