The New Debate: Does Cycling Really Need Fixing? ASO Weighs in on One Cycling; Collapse at Andalucia; Crisis at SafeSport; How Long Can Cycling Depend on Free Infrastructure Usage?
Key Takeaways:
● Emerging Debate: Does Cycling Really “Needs Fixing”
● ASO Finally Weighs In on One Cycling
● Sad Collapse and Controversy at Andalucia
● Cycling’s Dependency on Free Public Infrastructure
● Impending Crisis at SafeSport?
With all the media focus and rumors around the so-called “One Cycling” project lately, and despite strong encouragement from some corners and begrudging support from others, there are now various voices asking whether cycling really even needs to be fixed in the first place. Some of these critics question whether significant changes to the calendar and season narrative would actually be a good thing, while others assert that the financial condition of the sport is already just fine. We have heard many of these basic arguments before, often from some of the established traditionalists in the sport, like former Soudal boss John Lelangue (“cycling works perfectly today”) or Patrick Lefevere (“the grand tours last 21 days – not 17 or 15 – we don’t want to create softies”). Indeed, Lelangue once said, “if a cycling team makes a profit at the end of the season, it is either because too much money was being asked of the sponsors or because not enough money was being pumped into the development of the sport.” Clearly, there is a yawning gap between differing financial perspectives on the sport.
This past week, several respected commentators weighed in on this question from different perspectives. GCN posited that an increasing tenure of team lifespans shows that the sport’s stability is increasing. A supporting graph (The Outer Line attempted to obtain the supporting data) suggests that, in 2024, the “average length of time that a Tour de France team has been in existence will be 21.32 years – a figure that has never been higher.” While that is an interesting (if weirdly precise) data point, there’s always a considerable amount of uncertainty or judgment involved when tracing the ownership or management of an individual team or license. Should Astana really be considered the modern-day descendent of ONCE, and is Visma really the same organization that once ran Rabobank? One could debate the details here forever, and probably – as the author points out – it might not change the general conclusion that much. But more importantly, and regardless of how one interprets historical lineage, even if a single team license has been in existence (or even under the same ownership or management for many years) the real question is: does that necessarily imply broader economic security or sustainability? True, several of the French teams (AG2R, Cofidis, FDJ) have had consistent ownership and at least one consistent sponsor for many years – but they may be the exception that proves the rule? Other teams, for example Movistar or EF, can trace a consistent organizational lineage back a long way, but more than once have also had to desperately find new sponsors in order to survive (and take on new names in the process). That doesn’t really meet the definition of economic stability.
Veteran commentator The Inner Ring took to task some of the oft-discussed calendar changes – raising a number of valid concerns that could result from haphazard rearrangement of the calendar, warning “be careful what you wish for.” Among the key points here were (1) the historical reasons behind various overlapping races (Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico were originally scheduled at the same time because most Italian racers weren’t being invited to tune up their race form in France) and (2) the spinoff effects that could arise from eliminating overlapping races or adjusting the length of grand tours (teams might then operate with fewer riders, and jobs could be lost); in short, there could be a lot of unintended consequences. But of course there are also flip sides to many of these arguments. For example: (1) the sport is a different place today than it was 60 years ago; two overlapping races might have made good sense back then, but do they still today? and (2) where is it written that the purpose of pro cycling is to provide jobs for as many riders as possible? If that was true, why not add a couple more grand tours to the schedule? In short, while there may be valid reasons and justifications for cycling’s calendar and season-long narrative as they stand today, there are also valid reasons to consider significant changes. The Tour de France is never going to be moved to the fall, but there are a lot of other less monumental changes and simplifications that might make the sport easier to understand and more accessible. The devil is in the details, and perhaps that is why nothing ever seems to change much.
Finally, as our colleague Professor Daam van Reeth has pointed out, investment across pro cycling has been increasing incrementally in parallel with other sports – a growth curve that has kept lockstep with rising logistical and salary costs, and which has been bolstered by nation-state and billionaire patronage. While on the surface this might suggest that cycling is keeping pace, or that it could be considered “sustainable,” team owners and race organizers are actually spending every last cent just to stage the sport; there is no actual investment return that would reflect the value of the team license or their race tier slot. Hence, in light of the ongoing revolution in sports revenue strategies, this doesn’t really meet the definition of economic stability, nor describe a healthy business ecosystem. This whole dialogue around team longevity and sustainability highlights the widening difference in financial perspectives and shines a light on the cognitive biases to which many of the sport’s decision-makers fall prey when assessing the sport’s health.
Also this week, one other party weighed in on One Cycling – the elephant in the room or the 800-pound gorilla in the sport, otherwise known as the ASO. As many have pointed out over the years, any serious attempt to reform pro cycling would seem to require the basic buy-in and participation of ASO. However, that support does not seem to be forthcoming for One Cycling. In an interview this past week, ASO’s Tour director Christian Prudhomme reminded everyone of pro cycling’s pecking order, and casually swept aside the One Cycling project with a few dry remarks. According to Prudhomme, ASO has never considered One Cycling to be a viable reform vehicle or a business competitor, and that the project has little support – even among the teams previously leaked to be part of the organization. He further painted One Cycling’s core failure as an over-focus on the money that would be required to “buy” the sport and enact change. That last sentiment appeared to be a thinly-veiled jab at the Saudi investment fund, CVC Capital, or whoever might be the latest rumored financier of the project. In our view, rather than entrench along traditional battle lines, it would be far more constructive for ASO and One Cycling – in whatever form it shows up next – to sit at a common table and incrementally work out meaningful solutions acceptable to all parties, rather than criticizing each other and carelessly leaking the details so far in advance that nothing happens at all.
The past weekend saw the usual hum of early-season stage racing across the warmer parts of Europe, with the French Mediterranean coast hosting the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes, southern Portugal hosting the hotly-contested Volta ao Algarve, and Valencia hosting the Women’s Setmana Ciclista. However, in contrast to the previous weekend, the calendar was a little less crowded – due to the shortening of the Vuelta a Andalucia (Ruta del Sol) from its original five-stage schedule to a single 4.9-kilometer long time trial. This unexpected (and frankly absurd) change was due to on-going farmer protests in the region, which reportedly left police unable to secure the course. The last-minute and drastic course alternation highlights just how disruptive and widespread these recent protests have become. As they continue to spread, it is feasible that they may also pose a threat to the upcoming Spring Classics schedule.
Controversy soon followed in Andalucia. While the winner of the single Andalucía stage, Lotto-Dstny’s Maxim van Gils, assumed the victory would bring with it a valuable haul of 225 UCI points for both himself and his second-division team (for winning both the stage and the overall), the UCI later retroactively changed to the event to a ProSeries one-day race, and said that would mean that it was worth a total of just 20 points. That arbitrary decision was obviously a massive disappointment for both Lotto and Van Gils. It was also met with virtually unanimous disapproval by both race organizers and the teams and riders who made the effort to travel to the region and were then forced to stand by with little clarity on the situation; the stages were called-off daily in a piecemeal manner. It will be interesting to see how many teams commit to participating in the event next year.
A bigger question: does last week’s Andalucia breakdown presage a bigger challenge for open road cycling events in the future? While at first glance it’s difficult to hold Andalucía organizers responsible – since they have no control over protests – they could have canceled the entire event earlier, which would have allowed the riders and teams to make other training and racing plans. Yet it was apparent early on that local police resources were fundamentally unwilling or unable to secure the stages – due to a lack of capacity. Even though the farmer protests exacerbated this shortfall, it is perhaps a factor that the organizers should have realized before they summoned teams and riders to the event. More generally, it underlines just how utterly dependent traditional open-road racing is on taxpayer-funded police and road resources. This lack of patience with road closures has certainly been a factor in the decline of U.S. and U.K. road racing; Milan-Sanremo being pushed out its central Milan starting location to the suburbs suggests that even high-profile monuments aren’t immune to the same pressures.
However, instead of being viewed as an existential threat to road cycling, course restrictions could force organizers and fans to creatively re-imagine the sport. For example, when Amstel Gold was forced to run on a closed 18-kilometer loop in 2021 to comply with COVID lockdown rules in the Netherlands, the event ran without significant disruption. And, as we highlighted many times, these types of fixed circuits would also significantly decrease the costs of TV and race production, along with creating a better fan experience that could offer dedicated food and beverage sales with VIP-access add-ons – adding a much-needed new stream of revenue. Although traditionalists may bristle at these ideas, the disappointing collapse of a proud early-season stage race into a single 4.9-kilometer time trial illustrates that small changes like this may be required to ensure the future of the sport.
A recent report that flew mostly under the radar suggested concerns and an impending crisis at the U.S. Center for SafeSport – the agency formed six years ago, in the wake of the horrific women’s gymnastics scandal, to monitor and resolve allegations of abuse in Olympic sports. Cases are increasingly taking too long to be resolved, because (1) there are too few employees to handle them (the agency has an annual budget of $24 million and about 65 employees), and (2) because the number of cases has skyrocketed (after reviewing 300 cases in its first year, the agency last year received almost 7,000 complaints) On the one hand, it seems a positive development if more athletes are willing to step up and confront abuse issues; in the past many such situations have been swept under the rug. On the other hand, it seems to be a far greater volume of inquiries that the agency can reasonably be expected to handle in a timely manner. Furthermore, many cases are never really closed; nearly 38% of cases the agency investigated between 2017 and 2022 ended in “administrative closure” – meaning SafeSport “made no findings, imposed no sanctions and there was no public record of the allegation.”
Both a misplaced focus and the unacceptable time it takes to adjudicate some cases is highlighted by one case which has drawn attention recently. In April of 2022, a 13-year-old swimmer from Denver was accused of “a pattern of behavior which constitutes sexual misconduct” between 2019 and 2022. It turns out the 8th grader had smacked another teammate on the butt in a locker room, a year earlier. “More than 20 months later, the case remains open, even after local police in the town 40 miles north of Denver investigated and dismissed it within weeks. Now 16 and a high school sophomore, the teen's promising swimming career has been plunged into uncertainty by the temporary sanctions imposed by SafeSport.” The athlete’s parents indicate difficulties in getting any kind of response from SafeSport and decry the agency’s “guilty until proven innocent” working model. Ed Williams, the former chair of the Olympic athlete advisory council said, “Once a complaint is filed, the extreme amount of time it takes constitutes a denial of due process.” SafeSport was founded on laudable intents, but it appears headed for trouble unless new sources of funding can be identified.