100 Crazy Days
What a compressed men’s and women’s road season could mean for the athletes, fans and the events themselves
Following the uci’s announcement of the revised 2020 calendars, teams and riders have tough decisions to make as the new dates will push everyone to their limits
On May 5, after two months without professional road cycling – 60-odd days filled with fear, death, cancellations, lockdowns, toilet-paper hoarding and Zwift’s attempts to show the world that virtual racing isn’t to real racing what chicory is to coffee or carob is to chocolate – the uci released revised schedules of the men’s and women’s Worldtours.
Any rejoicing that followed the release of the new calendar quickly gave way to close scrutiny of the crowded schedules. Cycling’s governing body shoehorned a heap of races into 100 days from Aug. 1 to Nov. 8, including all three three-week Grand Tours within 72 days. The new schedule seemed too hectic and unsustainable. In fact, soon after the May 5 announcement, the Vuelta a España cancelled its visit to Portugal due to travel restrictions. A little more than a week later, the Postnord Vårgårda West Sweden team time trial and road race originally slated for early August in the revised women’s Worldtour calendar were cancelled and slated to return in 2021. June 4 saw the same thing happen to the Ladies Tour of Norway, which was to follow the Vårgårda West Sweden races. The cancellations created a three-week gap in events following Strade Bianche. By June 9, rcs Sport had to switch Il Lombardia to mid August, transforming it to “The Race of the Full Leaves.” Surely there will be further changes to the ambitious plan. As the Oakland Raiders’ quarterback Ken Stabler used to quip after a failed play, “Easy to call, hard to run.”
Races encroach upon each other in the new layout, especially on the men’s side. The overlap is exemplified by “Super Sunday,” Oct. 25, the day when the men’s and first-ever women’s Paris-roubaix races run, the Giro d’italia concludes and the Vuelta features a summit finish on the Tourmalet. The schedule is complicated further by significant non-worldtour events. For every cancellation that alleviates the congestion, such as that of the Tokyo Olympic Games and some national championships, there’s a high-profile race like Milano-torino on Aug. 5. Sixteen Worldtour teams participated in the one-day event in 2019 when Michael Woods
won. The time trials at the world championships in Aigle-martigny, Switzerland, overlap with the Tour de France.
Another reason that the condensed schedule might prove to be untenable is the financial strains on the teams. The pandemic has put several teams – including Woods’ EF Pro Racing and Hugo Houle’s Astana – on the fiscal ropes. uci head David Lappartient acknowledged the burden of zipping around Europe with excursions into Asia, and cited a protocol to reduce transfer costs.
Before the start of July, the length of the road season would have clashed with ’cross, possibly causing calendar conflicts for Wout Van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. The cyclocross World Cup had expanded from nine to 14 races. Four CX races overlapped with the Worldtour. Then, three events – in Waterloo, Wis., Dublin, Ireland and Antwerp, Belgium – were cancelled on July 1, so only the CX season opener, in Overijse, Belgium, will run during the Vuelta a España. Van der Poel will race the three mountain bike World Cup cross country events, missing Sept. 30’s La Flèche Wallonne. But the autumn-heavy schedule might have a plus side, too. We could see Woods in some races that we couldn’t have expected back in March when he broke his leg at Paris-nice, his only competition of the season.
Outside of the problems with the new calendars, what could we expect from the compressed season?
Lotto-soudal’s model of splitting its squad into three groups based on the Grand Tours could be taken up by other teams. A Tour de France gang might double as the Belgian Cobbled Classics outfit, while an Ardennes Classics platoon could go on to the Vuelta. Crucially, Lotto-soudal’s scheme involves some flexibility to move between groups.
Expect the hygiene and distancing practices that have marked the covid-19 pandemic to remain in place at races. The riders could face increased medical testing. Race officials and volunteers will undoubtedly wear gloves and masks. Look for podiums with riders staggered or separated. The tradition of podium girls might finally be made obsolete. Racing behind “closed doors,” that is, without spectators, might be the norm, along with limited media presence. On June 19, the uci announced its covid-19 protocols, which feature the implementation of team and peloton bubbles, and testing programs. Can you imagine nothing but the purr of motos on the Col du Tourmalet, the Trouée d’arenberg or the Muur? BoraHansgrohe’s Emanuel Buchmann can, he says, having raced the sparsely attended, coronavirus-marred uae Tour in February.
The prestigious stage races – namely the Grand Tours on the men’s side and the Giro Rosa on the women’s – will influence the lineups of the stage races that precede them. Expect the Tour of Poland and the shortened Critérium du Dauphiné to be packed with Tour de France-bound riders and the Boels Ladies Tour start lists to feature the majority of the Giro Rosa contenders. Tirreno-adriatico, no longer separated from the men’s Giro d’italia by its usual two months, will be a key tune-up for the Italian Grand Tour. The