« On se bat à coups de points » pour le WorldTour 2023-2025 : Matis Louvel a décroché, ce mercredi à la Course aux Raisins, sa deuxième victoire pro (voir classement) et par la même...
www.directvelo.com
Probably the best article about the points battle I've seen all year, great stuff from Directvelo.
Some of the most interesting parts:
About the current situation:
- Arkea confirming that's it's all in for their top 10 scorers in every race and that the situation gives a lot of stress. They have been planning this for 3 years tho and they are in a good position even tho they still don't know how the Quintana situation will turn out.
- Vauquelin wants to ride the u23 worlds but doesn't know if he has the green light from Arkea because of the point situation
- BEX is tired of talking about the points, it brings to much negativity
- Cofidis says the situation gives stress
- LTS, from the outside people make it seem that the team is mess because of it but the athmosphere in the bus is pretty good. They want to stay in the WT but the most important thing is to be in the top 2 of the ProTeams (outdated quote)
- Rik Verbrugge from Israel remains, he still believes the team is going to make it (misses some braincells I think).
Criticism towards the UCI from "big teams"
- Basically all of them: SYSTEM IS ***
- Israel complaining about how races are being raced, not for the win anymore but for about not letting other teams win. Really weird tactics, nothing that has to do with cycling.
- French teams complaining about the fact that the Schaal Sels gave 125 points, the same as Druivenkoers ("level way higher"). I agree but it's quite funny and hypocritical as those are the 2 teams that are going to be/stay WT because they have been exploiting the system for 3 years long. They're acting like they haven't been getting free points for 30 months in a row in little french races. Seriously, Arkea has 2 WT wins in 5 years time.
- Also complaints about the fact that organizers can decide who gets to ride which race and that there are limits (50% WT teams in .1, 70% in .Pro)
Criticism towards the UCI from "small teams"
- Lots of Pro Conti/Conti teams that are in throuble because they can't ride good results anymore in smaller races. There are just too many good teams and riders at the start. Sponsors don't get the visibility they need en their riders are demotivated.
- Brandt from the fluo yellow Bingoal Tietema with the weird name team things there's going to be team appealing the decision in the end and they might have chance because of the Covid problems.