Newly crowned Olympic Champion Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) is keen to see organisers reduce the number of riders per teams in races. Speaking to a small group of journalists, Van Avermaet said that the new, much larger, WorldTour calendar necessitates the change but that a move to smaller teams will also make racing much more interesting to watch.
All WorldTour teams must participate in all WorldTour events, entering teams of nine for the three Grand Tours and teams of eight for all other events. Earlier this month, the UCI announced the new-look WorldTour calendar which will see the number of races grow from 27 to 37. To incorporate the increase, there are a number of clashes on the calendar, with Clasica San Sebastian, the Tour de Pologne and RideLondon-Surrey Classic all on the same weekend. WorldTour teams will be able to opt out of some of the new WorldTour races but the exact rules remain nebulous.
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme has already indicated his desire to cut down on the size of teams. Van Avermaet believes that there are plenty of races where they could trial it first.
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“If you see the WorldTour calendar, which will be so big next year, it might be good for all the teams because some of the teams only have 25 riders. It would be difficult to cover the whole programme with the WorldTour races. Maybe to split it up would not be a bad idea,” Van Avermaet said in response to a question from Cyclingnews. “For sure we have to try it once, and there are some opportunities in other races. Maybe not directly in the Tour de France but we can try in the Dauphine, Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico."
“It would be nice to see how the peloton reacts and how the teams react to less numbers. Then you can make a conclusion after this.”
When Prudhomme spoke to L’Équipe in July, he stated the need to cut the number of riders in a Grand Tour line-up from nine to eight. However, Van Avermaet believes that this could come down a little further again, with one-week stage races taking the lead from events such as the Tour of Britain and entering only six.
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