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Continental Drift with Andrew Hood: Cooler heads needed as UCI, organizers brawl

Published: Feb. 22, 2007

Cycling rolls into the 2007 season a house divided.

At almost every level of the sport, cycling is facing ruptures of unprecedented proportions. Operación Puerto, the Floyd Landis scandal, the ProTour battle and waning interest among media and fans have left cycling battled and bruised.

Rather than circle the wagons and close ranks, cycling’s power brokers are engaged in a incendiary civil war.

Divisions run deep and wide: the UCI vs. the grand tours; teams vs. teams; and rider vs. rider over the war on doping.

Among the major fractures are:

Chinks in the façade of solidarity among ProTour teams were disclosed in January over the question of incorporating riders implicated in the Operación Puerto investigation. A 9-8 vote (with the five French teams, Gerolsteiner, T-Mobile and CSC dissenting) to keep Discovery Channel within the ProTour fold after signing Puerto refugee Ivan Basso looked more like a division of red and blue states.

Teams differ widely on which tactic seems best suited to eradicating doping. T-Mobile, CSC and others are taking forward-looking, zero-tolerance stances with increased internal controls, while others seem content to live with the laissez-faire attitude that doping only exists when riders get caught.

Operación Puerto continues to hang over the sport like a toxic cloud. The Spanish police clearly bungled the investigation after uncovering what appears to have been a major blood-doping ring. A lack of hard evidence leaves the UCI unable to impose any disciplinary order on the preposterous chaos of leaked phone taps, incriminating documents and ludicrous nicknames. It’s very likely that dirty riders are already back in the peloton while innocent riders are unfairly being stigmatized or even unemployed.

The Landis debacle shows how far the fight against doping still needs to go, in terms of protecting riders’ rights as well as the integrity of the events. With the veracity of doping controls under attack and a winner of the 2006 Tour likely to be unknown until well past the start of the 2007 Tour, it’s no wonder that fans and media are tuning out.

Racers are split over the question of DNA testing as a new weapon in the anti-doping arsenal. Oscar Freire and Paolo Bettini, with four world titles and nearly a dozen classics between them, openly call DNA testing an invasion of privacy.

However, it’s the bitter and escalating dispute between the grand-tour organizers and the UCI over the ProTour project that’s the most threatening.

With the ProTour calendar set to start with Paris-Nice less than three weeks away, race organizers are in open rebellion.

Turf battles, inflated egos, economic self-interest and political infighting have long been part of the cycling milieu, but this year things are reaching a breaking point.

ASO, RCS Sport and Unipublic – organizers of the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España, respectively - have all but abandoned the ProTour model. By refusing to acknowledge the ascension of Unibet.com to the 20-team ProTour league, the "Big Three" are decisively breaking ranks.

The Big Three are fighting tooth and nail against some basic tenets of the ProTour, namely their reduced ability to invite population national teams to their respective tours as well as a perceived threat to their lucrative TV rights.

ASO has already said it will operate Paris-Nice March 11-18 without the official sanction of the UCI and signed an agreement ceding control to the French cycling federation. RCS Sport also left Unibet.com off its list of "invited" Giro teams earlier this month and the Vuelta said it, too, would tow the line.

After compromising to go along with the ProTour concept for two years in 2005-06, the race consortium seems to believe it can go it alone in light of what they see as a lack of concessions on the part of the UCI.

There’s even growing speculation that the Big Three are poised to announce a rival circuit beyond the control of the UCI and ProTour format.

This is very dangerous territory both for the UCI and the grand tours.

As the owners of cycling’s most lucrative and prestigious properties -- of ProTour races, ASO owns Paris-Nice, Flèche Wallone, Paris-Roubaix Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour de France, Paris-Tours; RCS Sports, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo, the Giro d’Italia and the Giro di Lombardia; Unipublic, the Vuelta a España – these big, for-profit media conglomerates have plenty of clout.

Tour de France officials like to say it’s the Tour that makes the stars, not the other way around, but they are wrong if they think a rival circuit could flourish.

The last thing cycling needs are two competing circuits, with teams, stars, races and traditions split between hostile camps.

Sports history is littered with examples of breakaway leagues floundering on their own. XFL quickly became a joke and the acrimonious split of the CART and Indy Car Series in the 1990s doomed the popular racing format to second-fiddle status with the rise of NASCAR.

The increasing antagonism has put the UCI in a pickle. A last-gasp effort at compromise ended Monday in France when ASO president Patrice Clerc essentially told UCI president Pat McQuaid to stuff it.

The cycling community is anxiously waiting to see how the UCI counters. It’s already filed a lawsuit with the European Commission, claiming that the Big Three are usurping its powers as the sport’s governing body, but that process could drag on for years.

The more pressing issue is the looming start of Paris-Nice and ASO’s insistence on ignoring ProTour selection rules. A drastic decision such as banning teams, forcing all ASO races out of the ProTour or a team boycott would only precipitate a disastrous breakup.

Cycling is spiraling toward balkanization at a critical juncture when a united front in the fight against doping, to regain credibility among fans and media alike, should supersede individual interests.

A pragmatic solution of continued dialogue and compromise on both sides could be hard to square with all affected parties, especially the backers of Unibet.com, who’ve ponied up millions of euros to buy into the ProTour.

The line has been drawn on the tarmac. It will be interesting to see who’s the first to blink. May cooler heads prevail.

Andrew Hood is VeloNews European correspondent.