The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s overruling of the UCI’s decision not to issue Katusha a WorldTour licence has thrown egg on the faces of cycling’s governing body – faces already scrambled by an omelette of Jan Ullrich-sized proportions.
Less than 24 hours after Katusha’s star rider Joaquim Rodriguez opened his 2013 account with a trademark uphill victory in the Tour of Oman – and just moments after a meteorite landed over the Russian Urals – there were fireworks of another kind when CAS announced they had upheld Katusha’s appeal of the UCI’s still as-yet-unexplained decision not to issue the Russian team a WorldTour licence.
Later in the day, the UCI made a brief statement on its website that it accepted the results of the CAS ruling, thereby allowing Katusha back into the big time – and in the process keeping Rodriguez from jumping what seemed to be a sinking ship.
It was first thought that Katusha’s readmission would be at the expense of one of the teams who made the final cut – namely Argos-Shimano, FDJ or SaxoBank-Tinkoff – but the UCI was quick to dispel those fears by promising that no existing licences would be revoked.
With 19 WorldTour teams now in existence instead of the usual 18, race organisers were forced to alter their allocation for wildcard teams.
In the past day, both ASO – who organise the Tour de France – and the Vuelta a Espana announced they would invite three, and not the usual four, wildcard teams on their races. It was an easy decision to make, what with neither race having yet announced their wildcard entries for 2013.
Spare a thought for the organisers of the Giro d’Italia, Paris-Nice, Criterium du Dauphine and Tirreno Adriatico, however, who had all chosen their wildcard teams. In January, before the season had began, Giro organisers RCS Sport overlooked Katusha – then outside the WorldTour – and gave its wildcard berths to Vini Fantini-Selle Italia, Colombia Coldeportes, Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox and Androni-Venezuela.
“What a mess,” Giro race director Michele Acquarone told Cyclingnews on learning about Katusha’s readmission.
“Now we have 19 teams so I’m curious to see what’s going to happen. We’ve planned everything for 18 teams and then the wildcard teams. We’re not ready for 19 WorldTour teams. Logistically everything has been set up for races like Tirreno and the Giro. I really don’t know how we’d have one more team in the race.”
With the UCI apparently not returning his calls and a solution not offered, Acquarone has since confirmed that all wildcard entries will still stand – and so his main fear stands: the Giro will contain one more than the usual 22 teams.
“Adding a 23rd team also adds costs of at least €150,000,” Acquarone said after listing other logistical concerns – from hotel bookings to parking spaces for an extra bus at starts and finishes.
“I would have expected the UCI to talk with us about it first instead of dropping this burden on our shoulders.”
It remains to be seen if Acquarone and the Giro try to get past the burden of an extra team in their race by, say, limiting squads to eight riders instead of the usual nine; or perhaps the four wildcard teams can reduce their numbers by one, meaning there would be an extra five riders in the peloton, and not nine.
As ASO have already issued its four wildcard invitations for Paris-Nice and the Criterium, they too will now be open for 23 teams. “We couldn’t leave a team on the side of the road,” said Christian Prudhomme, the head of ASO. But the race director confirmed that the Tour de France would still feature 22 teams this summer – meaning just three places for wildcard invitations.
Last year’s wildcard places for the Tour went to three French teams (Cofidis, Saur-Sojasun and Europcar), with Argos-Shimano – back then, still a Pro Continental outfit – taking the fourth berth.
Europcar, Cofidis, Sojasun and IAM Cycling have already been handed wildcard places for this year’s Paris-Nice, while Europcar, Cofidis, Bretagne-Seche and Team NetApp-Endura have been invited to the Criterium.
But there would be cries of chauvinism should ASO opt for three French teams for the Tour de France – meaning one from Cofidis or Sojasun would be dropped. (You’d think that Europcar were dead-certs given their success over the past two years through Thomas Voeckler and Pierre Rolland.)
The decision could be easiest for the Vuelta organisers, who last year accepted Andalucia, Caja Rural, Cofidis and Argos-Shimano. With no decision yet made and the latter team now in the WorldTour, Vuelta director Javier Guillen doesn’t have to worry about losing too many friends.
But the whole situation underlines what a shambles the UCI has really become.
To omit Katusha for reasons unexplained and then reinstate them once important decisions for important races had already been made is nothing but an oversight of titanic proportions. It has also underlined the bizarre structuring of the sport’s top division – with the 18 spots changing arbitrarily on a yearly basis.
Garmin team manager Jonathan Vaugthers this week spoke out about the need for more permanent franchises in cycling, citing the “constant upheaval that puts [cycling] on the back foot”.
“You need to take on these battles once and then it’s done. Have it reviewed after that at certain junctures for sure, but it can’t be a year-to-year process,” he said, stressing a need for the selection criteria “to be defined, understood, transparent and public and WADA-code compliant.”
Vaugthers clearly knows more about the intricacies of cycling than I do, but from a fan’s perspective I’d like cycling to take a more football-orientated look in which teams are given points for victories throughout the season, and at the end of the campaign certain teams are relegated to the second-tier and others gain promotion.
That said, such a method passes over the fact that some teams – Europcar, for instance – are not too interested in being in the WorldTour, primarily for budgetary concerns. Jean-Rene Bernaudeau’s outfit knows full well that it will be invited to all the major stage races in France – and that is the primary concern.
It’s a shame, though, that an attacking team like Europcar are never seen on the Giro or Vuelta. While the Vuelta have yet to make up their mind, with only three wildcard places in the offing, a spot for Europcar now looks highly unlikely.
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