Tour de France organiser Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) has reportedly threatened to pull its races from the UCI’s calendar due to a lack of progress with the proposed reforms. According to Reuters, ASO sent a letter to cycling’s governing body stating that it would remove it races from the calendar should the reforms not go ahead.
Reuters says that ASO’s primary worry is the clashing of events on the calendar. ASO organises a number of major races including the Tour de France, Critérium du Dauphiné, Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Paris-Nice currently clashes with Tirreno-Adriatico, while the final weekend of the Dauphiné overlapping with the start of the Tour de Suisse.
The split would not mean that the races are cancelled but would take place separately to the WorldTour calendar. This would give ASO the freedom to select any team that races, without the restrictions that the UCI WorldTour circuit imposes on them.
ADVERTISEMENT
The UCI has plans to bring about major reforms to the structure of cycling with a view to streamlining the calendar. It is hoped that the plans can be put in place for 2017 but discussions with teams and organisers have stalled as they have failed to reach an agreement. According to Reuters, the Professional Cycling Council voted on the reform this week but it has not been validated by the UCI’s management committee
This is not the first time that ASO has threatened to pull the Tour de France from the UCI's calendar, but in the past the battle has largely been over the fact that UCI rules required them to invite the top teams.
In 2007, ASO threatened to withdraw its race from UCI control because the governing body insisted the race allow the Unibet squad to compete. The ASO argued that the team was illegal under French laws that prohibit gambling, but ever since the inception of the ProTour, now the WorldTour, the organisers have railed against the rules that require them to invite all of the top teams. In the end, the Tour went forward without Unibet, under UCI sanctioning.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1ewvk5s
No comments:
Post a Comment