MinnMan

IMHO, Froome was a huge error for them and now they have paid the price. His salary, €5.5M/year, is more than 1/3 of the team's total budget (reported €14.5M in 2020). What he brought in results, mentorship, and publicity wasn't worth it.

From what I've read, Sylvan Adams, their billionaire sponsor, may sue UCI. Good luck with that. He's also hinted that rather than accept relegation, he'll shutter the team. Whatever dude, but a little bit of moneyball might have been a better idea.

slcbob

The UCI is getting sued whether they flip flop or not.

Sylvan Adams would have less to complain about if he had bothered to field a team that could scoop up enough points to get the auto-invite to Grand Tours from the Pro ranks. Lotto is down from the WT but not out because they'll be at the Tour. Israel? Not so much. He can bankroll them but the only not-insignificant sponsors will be those seeking to curry favor from him or otherwise serve the cause.

No one to blame but themselves. Another failed start up.

slcbob

Here's a pre-mortem.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rel...finitely-down/

Interesting take-aways for me:

1) Israel SUN would be in a different place without the top 10 riders rule.

2) Arkea's absence from the Giro was by their design. Their spring campaign lifted them from the ashes.

sincos

A few takeaways from the relegation battle this year for me:

1. 3 teams started the season with real intent and never let up: Arkea, IWG, Cofidis. IWG of course had a season for the ages, Arkea ran out of gas but (even losing Quintana's TdF points) built enough of a buffer to survive. Those 3 wanted WT status, took nothing for granted, and got it. Good for them.

2. Lotto started right behind them and, even starting from 20th, I thought were a shoo-in for staying up. Ewan is too quick, Wellens solid in the one days, and while the squad is thin, that's also true for the teams around them. They tried hard, but Ewan couldn't stay upright, Wellens didn't show up, and de Lie's heroics were not enough.

3. I keep hearing that the current system is a joke because it makes sense for teams to clean up in small races and avoid the big races: see Arkea and the Giro. But that's the only real example, and Arkea are a Pro team. They would have done even better if they had done well in the Giro, but given their size and their nationality they chose the Tour as their GT. Next year they won't have that "luxury" (and, IMO, will be in a world of hurt because they're not nearly deep enough to cover the WT and getting rid of Quintana makes them even thinner. They need to score some good signings in the next couple of months.)

4. Several teams came in complacent and even entitled: BEX, EF, Israel. In a time of pandemic (which affected everyone), in a situation they had known about for 2 years, they thought they could pick and choose. You want it, go get it -- or at least make an effort. IWG competed in 115 races; Cofidis 124; AS 115. But BEX only 83; EF 74; and IPT 110, 49(!) since the Tour when it was clear they were in deep trouble.

I'm going to pick on EF now only because JV wrote a couple of commentaries in VN https://velonews.com/news/road/jonat...egation-fight/ and https://velonews.com/news/road/jonat...ways-to-do-it/. The sense of entitlement is strong -- we're EF! you can't expect us to race in some .1 race nobody's ever heard of! -- but I realize that some of that is desperation in the face of disastrous possibility he hadn't remotely planned for (why not is another question...) For sure they got hit hard by the pandemic, but so did others, and EF did well in that first shortened season (10th in 2020).

What got me was this: "Right now, a stage win in the Tour de France, an example of a race where all the best teams and riders are present, is worth 120 points. A win at a 1.1 race most people haven’t heard of, and where four top teams are present, is worth 125 points", implying that a stage win should count for more while bemoaning the reality that the Tour is all that matters for sponsors. But skewing the point system even further in favor of the Tour only exacerbates that and makes the system even more top-heavy. The UCI does have a goal of increasing the breadth and depth of support for the sport, and those .1s are important. It is true that most of those races are in Belgium, France, and Italy, so commercially it makes sense for IWG (Belgian), Cofidis (French) and Arkea (French) to show up for reasons having nothing to do with the Tour (there are, of course, no Italian WT teams). But that's where the base is, and do we really want to dry up the base to feed the Tour? The Tour is big enough already and ensuring that the smaller races have their day doesn't hurt and only supports the big races. Many of those "little" races are also really old (Giro del Veneto 1909, Ronde van Limburg 1919, etc) so the support runs long and deep. And commercially I don't see why non-French or Belgian teams shouldn't be expected to race those .1s (not a few of which are in Spain and the Netherlands, btw) if that helps them show up for the Tour. The system we have now isn't perfect (Montreal, Quebec, TDU worth as much as Flanders, PR, or Lombardy?!?) but no system will be, and this one is reasonably workable and in the bigger picture relatively fair.

slcbob

I hadn't seen pt 2 of Vaughters' op-eds. Thanks for the link.

A few days ago, I was out for a ride and pondering the big things in life. I tried thinking through the "why top 10 riders, why not all?" angle again. I also got hung up on the added complexity in the points because the system (scoring, pool of races, etc.) spans both leagues is being used for BOTH relegation from the World Tour and promotion from the Pro Tour. Instead of separate pools for each.

Again, I didn't get very far. In my head, or with my legs.

I don't think JV has the answers but he has some good questions and concerns. TBD how the intended consequences of this play out, and what the unintended consequences are.

sincos

I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of the scoring system, but AIUI the 10-man scoring rule is to alleviate pressure on domestiques to score and acknowledge that not everyone contributes by scoring points. So, eg, would (D)QS have done better these last 3 years asking Morkov (who scored 127 this year) to score as many points as possible or having him leadout Cavendish (705) possibly to score max points? If it's the latter then the 10 man rule makes sense (though the number 10 is rather arbitrary).

Speaking of, Cofidis is surprisingly deep for a small team with many contributing. Their 10th man scored more than anyone else's except Ineos, and in fact scored more than the the 7th best scorers at J-V, QS, Bora, or BV. See here.

slcbob

Interesting observation on Cofidis.

Imagine what a scramble it would have been if Ewan stayed on his bike. Only 400 points separate 14th to 18th place, on the lip of the precipice.

diphthong

rule #87 had an "interesting" season. had he performed at an expected/anticipated level...

slcbob

Some changes to the points system summarized here.

More points at top races, deeper into the finish order, and deeper into the team roster.

https://www.velonews.com/news/road/g...-points-scale/

sincos

So the rich get richer and the big get bigger. Great, just what we need.
Going deeper into the team roster could be interesting. There may be some unintended consequences there, especially for sprinters. But these days seem to be kind of a low point for pure sprinters anyway ....