The cycling season ends much as it began, with Tadej Poga\u010dar raising his arms in victory, nation-state sponsors dominating \ufeffand a world governing body showing more interest in social media algorithms than in \ufeffethics.<\/p>\n
The combination of nation-state investment, ambivalence over anti-doping and stasis over the presence of Israeli athletes and sponsors in the peloton, has plunged the European scene into its biggest crisis of confidence since the Festina doping affair of 1998.<\/p>\n
It is unthinkable that the \u201cfree festival\u201d of European road racing could have found itself at the mercy of decisions made by Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, but the implications of the pro-Palestine protests at last month\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a finale in Madrid and the presence \ufeffof the Israeli-endorsed Israel Premier Tech team (IPT) have made that a reality.<\/p>\n
The prospect of further mass disruption to races next year\ufeff is now increasingly probable, should the conflict in Gaza not be resolved and the IPT team continue to compete.<\/p>\n
The recently established Athletes 4 Peace collective has called on Fifa and Uefa to ban Israeli participation, saying that \u201cit is an obligation for sporting bodies to take action against sports teams representing a country which a United Nations commission has concluded is committing genocide\u201d. Cycling\u2019s world governing body, the UCI, and British Cycling were asked about that initiative. The UCI has previously expressed its \u201ctotal disapproval of and deep concern about the events\u201d of the pro-Palestine protest, while British Cycling declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Since the near-collapse of 1998, cycling has survived multiple scandals and worked hard to shed its old-world image and become truly global. That pursuit of globalisation\ufeff, allied to the chase for new money from territories such as the Middle East and Africa, has come at a price. The recent World Championships in Rwanda, watched by crowds described as enthusiastic, happy and polite, were a long way from the chaos in Madrid and swept the crisis under the carpet, although two of IPT\u2019s main sponsors have now moved to distance themselves from the politicisation of the team.<\/p>\n
Instead, the main headlines were made by Poga\u010dar, who took yet another extraordinary solo win in the men\u2019s elite road race. From Tuscany in March to Africa in autumn, the Slovenian has been miles ahead \ufeffof the rest\ufeff, \ufeffwhile displaying an increasingly dismissive attitude to\ufeff his\u00a0peers.<\/p>\n
That antipathy has become mutual\ufeff, as the increasing levels of carping about his dominance\u00a0suggest. \u201cI\u2019m not here to make enemies,\u201d the Slovenian said in July, when asked if he was in danger of becoming despised\ufeff. \u201cWhen I finish my career, I will probably not speak to 99% of the\u00a0peloton\u201d.<\/p>\n
His UAE Emirates team, close to winning the Giro and second overall in the Vuelta, have enjoyed the highest number of victories ever, surpassing the mark of 85 wins in a season set by Mark Cavendish\u2019s Columbia-HTC team in 2009.<\/p>\n
Unspoken in the World Tour bubble is the shadow of suspicion that follows such domination. Many choose to ignore it, while others consign it to a hangover from the \u201cbad old days\u201d. The man who finally caught up with Lance Armstrong, Travis Tygart, is not so sure.<\/p>\n
The US Anti-Doping Agency chief told The Observer in May that the fight against doping in sport is \u201cat its lowest point\u201d in 25 years. \u201cThere is a lot of apathy in the [anti-doping] system whether in sport, or in Wada [World Anti-Doping Agency], of just shrugging your shoulders,\u201d the American said.<\/p>\n
There have been anti-doping gains, although they are mostly marginal. Wada has just moved to ban carbon monoxide rebreathing, a haemoglobin measuring technique used by both Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard, fellow Tour de France winner, when training at altitude.<\/p>\n
Despite that, in the face of Pogacar\u2019s relentlessness, it has been hard for other teams to get a look in. The sight of the Slovenian and two of his UAE team-mates, Isaac del Toro and Juan Ayuso, leaving the peloton behind on the brutal course in Rwanda, summed up the season.<\/p>\n
Pogacar won the Tour, while the Visma\u2013Lease a Bike team won both the Giro, through Simon Yates, and the Vuelta, with Vingegaard. But the racing in Spain, in particular, was overshadowed by the protests that shook the sport out of its bubble of self-interest.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, IPT have been told they are not welcome at this weekend\u2019s Giro dell\u2019Emilia in Italy, due to security concerns over the \u201csafety of all athletes, technical staff and spectators\u201d.<\/p>\n
As security fears over their presence have increased, IPT have pulled out of a forthcoming series of prestigious one-day races in northern Italy\ufeff. In play at the moment is a discussion revolving around IPT\u2019s future name, although whether that will be enough to placate the increasingly vociferous mass protests expected at bike races in 2026 remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Adam Hansen, the former professional who is now head of the riders\u2019 union, the CPA, has proposed that races be cancelled and not televised in order to end the pro-Palestine protests. \u201cProtesters should have the platform taken away from them,\u201d Hansen told the BBC. \u201cIf they have no platform, they won\u2019t go to a race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referencing the mass protests that disrupted the final stage of the Vuelta, Hansen said: \u201cCancelling would have shown them there\u2019s no point in coming to bike races because we turned the TV off. Yes, it\u2019s a huge deal…but we have to make a small sacrifice today for the long-term future of cycling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike in other sports, such as the NFL, football or cricket, cycling teams have no attachment to any sense of place; their loyalties are solely to their investors. But it\u2019s clear that while naming teams after nation states may have brought new wealth into a sport that has long been financially fragile, it has also brought a new raft of ethical\u00a0problems.<\/p>\n
Photograph by Miguel Oses\/AP Photo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cycling season ends much as it began, with Tadej Poga\u010dar raising his arms in victory, nation-state sponsors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-187581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}