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Effects of coronavirus on professional races

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Bad timing tobydawg. I don't know at the moment what happens next week here in Munic. We had a positive case in our authority in Munic and the guy and his contact persons are in quarantine. But although we are working outside very often there were no news until today what to do. Some people have home office places, but until today there was no rule to work at home.

I don't know how strictly the rule in italy is handled. I think people in rural areas should be allowed to cycle around in the forest. There should be no harm done.
 
Bad timing tobydawg. I don't know at the moment what happens next week here in Munic. We had a positive case in our authority in Munic and the guy and his contact persons are in quarantine. But although we are working outside very often there were no news until today what to do. Some people have home office places, but until today there was no rule to work at home.

I don't know how strictly the rule in italy is handled. I think people in rural areas should be allowed to cycle around in the forest. There should be no harm done.
If you ride in rural area and not on the main road pretty much nobody cares, my dad went on a short ride yesterday , and you always can go hiking alone in the woods.
 
Ofc it is, why why shouldnt it?

But this sucks. I fear a spring/summer without any sports at all, no Giro/Tour, Euros (which already are rumoured to be cancelled or already is), Olympics, NBA etc. I will get depressed maaaan....
It's not a good outlook at the moment, that's for sure.

I was talking to to some friends about the whole situation this morning and one of them said that there may be a slight silver lining to this from a racing perspective and made some interesting points.

If most of the major races are rescheduled into a much smaller block, straight after an extended period of no racing everybody is going to be:

1. Flying. Everybody would be able to train with full structure for an unprecedented amount of time.

2. Hungry AF. After a few months of missing out the peloton is going to be like caged tigers begging to be unleashed.

3. Racing everything. In a crazy, condensed calendar, there will be less consequences for going too deep. Lombardia for example will probably have its freshest, strongest, field in decades.

I'm not trying to say that the current situation is good, just some musings about what may well happen if this terrible situation can be contained and resolved in time.
 
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It's not a good outlook at the moment, that's for sure.

I was talking to to some friends about the whole situation this morning and one of them said that there may be a slight silver lining to this from a racing perspective and made some interesting points.

If most of the major races are rescheduled into a much smaller block, straight after an extended period of no racing everybody is going to be:

1. Flying. Everybody would be able to train with full structure for an unprecedented amount of time.

2. Hungry AF. After a few months of missing out the peloton is going to be like caged tigers begging to be unleashed.

3. Racing everything. In a crazy, condensed calendar, there will be less consequences for going too deep. Lombardia for example will probably have its freshest, strongest, field in decades.

I'm not trying to say that the current situation is good, just some musings about what may well happen if this terrible situation can be contained and resolved in time.
I'm a bit confused by #3. So, less rest and recuperation is a good thing?

PS: organizers of Nokere Koerse and E3 Harelbeke have already said they are not postponing, but simply cancelling and aiming for 2021. I expect a lot of races to follow suit. Maybe the monuments and GT's will be rescheduled, but a lot of semi classics will not.
 
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Cycling, football, basketball... it is just sport. Honestly, sport is meaningless. There is a serious virus floating around, collapsing the health systems of Italy, Spain, and european countries.

This is serious guys. Cancelling De Ronde, Roubaix, Champions League or whatever sport competition is cancelled is good if it helps avoiding hundreds or thousand of infections.

Probably most of us will be safe if we get Corona, but think about our parents and loved ones who have conditions that could be potentially mortal combined with coronavirus. Even people with smaller diseases potentially will not get the treatment they need because hospitals cannot take more patients. In some places of Italy hospitals are deciding who to save because they cannot treat everyone.

We all need to take precautions, to be sensitive and think about all the lives that will be saved if we try to slow down the infection.

But sport isn't meaningless, at least to a lot of people. The big question here is, is it the quality of human life that matters, or only the quantity of it (to prolong it, to live for as long as possible)? The shutting down of most aspects of human life could seriously impact on the happiness and legacies of individuals lives, both famous and not. In the sense that 2020 could be your biggest year in life, for a particular success in sport, art, in the work force; or maybe you are about to take a dream overseas adventure with your partner and she's just fallen pregnant and with the busyness of life, this might not be possible to take again. This isn't to suggest that CV is not serious and that nothing should be done about it. But it is that there is major human hypocrisy here. Because the theme when it concerns CV is to do everything possible to restrict the harm done to the health of humans. But why is this not taken to these same extremes in other aspects of life? Why do we drive motor vehicles then? These cause GUARANTEED deaths, in huge numbers, every single year, with many victims being killed in the prime of their lives, or in the case of the very young, losing potentially 80, 90, 100 years of lifelong experiences; which is surely more tragic than the loss of life of someone who is over 80, and who therefore likely doesn't have as many years to lose. I see no suggestion of returning to horse and cart (probably still some deaths, but far less), nor should there be. Or what about something like cigarette smoking? It is restricted a little more now, but humans can still choose to do it, even though it causes almost guaranteed negative health outcomes (plus there is also passive smoking). Italy is a good example as many still smoke here, so if CV kills many 80 year olds, wiping off roughly 10% of their life expectancy, what is the difference with cigarette smoking wiping off a similar amount of life expectancy, in fact probably more (plus CV would be a faster and perhaps less painful death, whereas ill health caused by cigarette smoking could impact greatly on the QUALITY of a human life for decades before it finally puts its final nail in your coffin)? But nobody is forcing people to stop smoking, because we are so caring for the health of all other humans.

Then there is the allowance for excessive drinking of alcohol, and of high consumption of meat, etc, etc, etc.

IF CV can be properly removed as a major threat because we stop the human world for 3 months, then doing so is probably worth it. But given its contagion level, and given the world of international travel that we live in today, this is highly unlikely. And it is inconsistent with our freedom levels allowed for concerning other aspects or pastimes that kill us before our time.
 
Corona sucks. There are obviously more important things than cycling or sport in general but this year could have been epic. Quintana flying in the mountains in february and march. Evenepoel dominating. Nibali looking good early in the season for the first time since 2013. I was getting really hyped.
It´s probably even worse for the older riders. Probably no last olympics for Valverde and Nibali. No GT comeback for Froome. No revenge season for Quintana.
 
Corona sucks. There are obviously more important things than cycling or sport in general but this year could have been epic. Quintana flying in the mountains in february and march. Evenepoel dominating. Nibali looking good early in the season for the first time since 2013. I was getting really hyped.
It´s probably even worse for the older riders. Probably no last olympics for Valverde and Nibali. No GT comeback for Froome. No revenge season for Quintana.
No GT comeback is good thing for Froome. He'll get an extra year for recovery. And mainly won't embarass himself this year prior TDF so he'll get his next contract, maybe even from Ineos.

Agreed on all other things though, this would be epic season. One less chance for Gilbert in his strive for five((
 
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