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Your race is TOO long or how we are punishing you for resisting...

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
0
Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/11250.0.html

The UCI warned the director of the Vuelta a España on Tuesday that the grand tour faces being downsized, according to the Spanish daily El Pais.

UCI ProTour executive committee coordinator Alan Rumpf told Vuelta director Victor Cordero in a letter that the three-week format was under threat.

And Rumpf said that they were considering running both the Tour of Germany and the Vuelta in September, and shortening the latter.

"The three weeks of the Vuelta are under debate," Rumpf said in the letter, extracts from which were published in Tuesday's El Pais.

"The commission is considering modifications to the calendar for the 2009 season and you must be aware that these changes could be put forward by 2008.

"You know the interest the Tour of Germany has in running in September, like the Tour of Spain, which would in some way satisfy many teams who take part in the Tour of Poland afterwards."

This year's Tour of Germany ran August 1-9, with the Tour of Poland following September 4-10.

Rumpf said that some of the 20 teams in the ProTour "had made it known that they wanted to be freed of the obligation of competing in the Vuelta."

Then-UCI president Hein Verbruggen introduced the ProTour two years ago. However, since its introduction, the UCI has been at odds with many race organizers, including those of the three major, three-week tours - the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta - over the issue of the Pro Tour.

The biggest complaint is that the format of the ProTour - which consists of having the biggest teams racing in an elite calendar of more than 20 races per seasons - is too restrictive.

Cordero told AFP that the grand-tour organizers would resist any change to the format.

"It is not in the interests of the UCI to endanger the Vuelta. It's part of the heritage of cycling. The entire country follows it. We will follow the same line of conduct at the Tour and the Giro," added Cordero.
Take that bitches says the UCI.
 

Kihaji

Norman Einstein
Jan 18, 2004
398
0
Dear Union of Collective Idiots(UCI),

The Vuelta is 71 years old. In America, and the rest of the world, we call that a tradition. Your pro tour is 3 years old, we call that a flash in the pan. 71 is greater than 3, and the Vuelta is greater than your piddly little pro tour. You should thank them for allowing you to be associated with one of the best known Tours, and sit down and shut up.

Thank you for your time,
Every cyclist on the planet.
 

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
The Vuelta is 71 years old. In America, and the rest of the world, we call that a tradition. Your pro tour is 3 years old, we call that a flash in the pan. 71 is greater than 3, and the Vuelta is greater than your piddly little pro tour. You should thank them for allowing you to be associated with one of the best known Tours, and sit down and shut up.
Does anyone in the cycling community (and by that I mean average level cyclists that follow racing) care that much about the ProTour? I follow some of the races, but grand tours alone are way more prestigious affairs that have a life of their own. The UCI is pumping their own "solution" so hard that it is creating more problems than it fixes. Cycling has a lot of tradition and history. I think it's one of the best things about the sport. Sacrificing tradition and history for advertising and scheduling is lame.
 

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
Interesting development (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/dec06/dec01news):

Six national federations oppose UCI ProTour

The representatives of six national cycling federations (Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and Luxembourg) have met on Thursday, November 30 in Paris and officially declared their opposition to the UCI ProTour "in its current form." Insisting on the creation of a round table assembling all parties involved in the sport (UCI, AIOCC, CPA, AIGCP), the federations aim to "find solutions which suit all, and not only a small core of persons at the UCI. If [the UCI] continues to oppose this, then the federations will organise the meeting without the UCI," according to a press statement.

The federations' representatives also made known that they will support the association of race organisers (AIOCC) in its proceeding before the European Commission regarding the legitimacy of the ProTour, and "deplored the UCI's treatment of the Continental circuit, attempting to privilege only the UCI ProTour." Rudolf Massak (Austria), Laurent De Backer (Belgium), José Grinan Lopez (Spain), Jean Pitallier (France), Renato Di Rocco (Italy) and Jean Regenwetter (Luxembourg) instead "esteem that the European Continental circuit should be managed by the UEC (European Union of Cycling)."

Furthermore, the high-ranking officials representing Europe' most important cycling nations expressed their "profound disagreement with the working methods of the UCI, in particular the participation in certain official events, the Vrijman report and the audit, which probably aims at damaging the prestige of the great cycling monuments."