The Tour Down Under regularly hosts high profile guests each January in Adelaide as major stakeholders of the sport jet down under for discussions, meetings, and sunshine. UCI president Brian Cookson and Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme were expected to meet last month at the race only for a late flight cancellation to ensure a postponement of UCI and ASO discussions. In attendance, however, was Tour de Yorkshire race director Gary Verity, who deals with both men and could possibly be the person to mediate the next meeting between the duo.
Verity was making his second appearance at the Tour Down Under this year, having first visited in 2012, and he explained to Cyclingnews that the WorldTour season-opener gave him and his team plenty of food for thought for both the 2014 Tour de France Grand Départ and the first running of the British 2.HC stage race last year.
"I think that it's a really good model for this kind of race. Clearly if you are doing a Grand Tour that’s not possible, but for this race it I think it works really well so we borrowed that idea," Verity explained.
ADVERTISEMENT
The parcours for the second edition of the Tour de Yorkshire was announced back in December. Verity provided further detail on what has changed for both riders and fans this year following the debut edition, which was won by Team Sky's Lars Petter Nordhaug.
"We’ve taken feedback on board from the riders and teams that the dirt stage was just a little bit too hard; it was probably more savage than people expected it to be so we’ve toned down stage 1, [though] it’s still a long way at 185 kilometres," he said. "There are still some climbs in it but it's not as savage as last year's first stage, where, for example, Marcel Kittel had to abandon.
"The second stage, 135 kilometres, is very much a sprinters' stage and we’ve done exactly the same stage for the men’s and women’s stage which is the feedback we’ve had from the female cyclists that they didn’t want a shorter stage; they wanted the same stage as the men.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1oldlDp
No comments:
Post a Comment