ASO to reduce races?

[Lexman]

Just read a short article in a belgian newspaper that ASO loses to much money with their races with the exception of Le Tour and Paris-Roubais.

ASO has the idea to not longer organise next year :
Paris - Tours
Tour de Picardie
Criterium International




ASo wants to organise a 4 day race in Norway

 

[LaFlorecita]

Oh no oh no...

 

[maltiv]

ASo wants to organise a 4 day race in Norway

They will organize Arctic Tour of Norway 8-11 of August which will take place in northern Norway in beautiful landscape. One of the stages will apparently be held during the night in the midnight sun.

 

[Sophistic82]

not surprising, and we will probably see more stupid tour-in-the-desert-financed-by-arab-oil races in exchange for scrapping classics like Paris-Tours.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

people should just f'n quit whining all the time. the norway race is a great idea, and in 5 years time nobody will remember criterium international. also I remember everyone whining about paris tours when it was a world cup and wt race, since it's so boring and flat

also the stupid in the desert tours, are great, oman was the greatest race so far this year and qatar usually is great too

 

[hoerpi]

I'm with Ryo here times are changing and the Norwegian race sounds really interesting, there's some fantastic scenery up there.

 

[Pentacycle]

Picardie... isn't that usually a 4-day race decided by four sprints? Most editions of P-T are disappointing as well with most top guys pulling out. Criterium international should just become a one day race with an A and B stage. (Short TT and a mountain stage) The sprinting field in CI is ridiculous to say the least.

 

[movingtarget]

A Russian Tour will be next. The Chinese races have been a great success not. Oman was good, Qatar is bland, maybe they will build a mountain. There is just no money or incentive for races like Paris-Tours anymore and Criterium International is pretty minor race. I would like ASO to improve the Dauphine. Tradition means nothing in sport anymore.

 

[maltiv]

I'm with Ryo here times are changing and the Norwegian race sounds really interesting, there's some fantastic scenery up there.

Indeed, it could be easily become the most scenic race out there. The biggest company in Norway, Statoil, is sponsoring the race, so money won't be an issue either. It will also be broadcasted live in HD by TV2 already this year.

And even though it takes place in a part of Norway where the population density is quite low, I'm sure there'll be more spectators on one single stage of Arctic Tour of Norway than there has been for the entire Paris Nice

 

[Pharazon]

A Russian Tour will be next. The Chinese races have been a great success not. Oman was good, Qatar is bland, maybe they will build a mountain. There is just no money or incentive for races like Paris-Tours anymore and Criterium International is pretty minor race. I would like ASO to improve the Dauphine. Tradition means nothing in sport anymore.

Qatar is usually really good.. perfect classic prep... it's just that there wasn't any wind this year

 

[Libertine Seguros]

A Russian Tour will be next. The Chinese races have been a great success not. Oman was good, Qatar is bland, maybe they will build a mountain. There is just no money or incentive for races like Paris-Tours anymore and Criterium International is pretty minor race. I would like ASO to improve the Dauphine. Tradition means nothing in sport anymore.

They talked about 2 days of St Petersburg, 2 days of Moscow and 4 days of Sochi. This mightn't be quite as bad as anticipated. You could have a decent race around Sochi at least (I've been looking at designing one). Some useful hills you could use around Novorossiysk and Anapa, a very attractive up-and-down coastal road from Novorossiysk to Tuapse to Sochi, and you have the option of mountaintop finishes at Gora Akhun and, if you go up to the Krasnaya Polyana skiing resorts for the Winter Olympics, you can climb a fairly tough climb up to the Rosa Khutor Alpine Skiing venue, and even tougher it looks like the climb up to the Laura Nordic Skiing venue is even tougher; it looks like being about 8km at 10%.

 

[pastronef]

Just read a short article in a belgian newspaper that ASO loses to much money with their races with the exception of Le Tour and Paris-Roubais.

ASO has the idea to not longer organise next year :
Paris - Tours
Tour de Picardie
Criterium International

that is bad.

paris-tours has a tradition, the race has always been a sprinter race, with some beautiful wins by attackers (virenque, gilbert, dekker, tchmil, pijl, and so on)

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Paris - Tours
Tour de Picardie
Criterium International

These appear replaceable, but with what?
Personally don't mind a shakeup.