World tour teams to boycott TTT in Qatar

[MatParker117]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/worldtour-teams-set-to-boycott-2016-world-championships-team-time-trial/

This week, the Association International des Groupes Cyclistes Professionels (AIGCP) – the teams’ association – ratified the motion to skip the trade-team event after an “overwhelming majority” of WorldTour teams voted in favour.

WorldTour teams are required to participate in each event on the WorldTour calendar, but are also obliged to compete in the TTT at the World Championships, the only road events run by the UCI, entirely at their own expense. The AIGCP, which claims its demands to the UCI have so far fallen deaf ears, feels the terms of participation are “abusive” and said that unless the terms are revised, the race will take place without the sport's top-level teams and riders. The vote took place during the AIGCP General Assembly on July 1, with the intention that action would be taken should a solution not come by early August. It is understood that the attending Pro Continental teams also supported the motion.

Well that's the end of this pointless excuse of an event, pointless to hold it without the teams.

 

[Anderis]

Shame, I really like TTTs.

 

[The Barb]

When I saw the headline I thought perhaps the teams were taking a principled stand against the evils of the Qatari government and legal system. A shame their motives are not quite that noble, but better than nothing I guess.

 

[veji11]

Well having at TTT at the WC is not a bad idea, having a commercial team TTT instead of national teams one is just bonkers.

 

[BigMac]

A National TTT wouldn't make any sense. There is literally no race during the year they'd ride together other than the following WC. What would be the point?

 

[Nick C.]

What if they held a race and no one showed up ...

 

[vedrafjord]

Good, this race is a complete waste of time.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

A National TTT wouldn't make any sense. There is literally no race during the year they'd ride together other than the following WC. What would be the point?

There are lots of individual sports with only a few team events every year, so that wouldn't really be anything special. And actually I've always thought it would be a better solution, to have national teams. Imo the WC should be an event for national teams and not WT teams. Otherwise you could do the road race with world tour teams too.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

A National TTT wouldn't make any sense. There is literally no race during the year they'd ride together other than the following WC. What would be the point?

There are lots of individual sports with only a few team events every year, so that wouldn't really be anything special. And actually I've always thought it would be a better solution, to have national teams. Imo the WC should be an event for national teams and not WT teams. Otherwise you could do the road race with world tour teams too.

This ^

 

[SKSemtex]

It really has no logic and it cost teams not small amount of money.
I do not wonder at all that they do not like it.

 

[veji11]

Re: Re:

A National TTT wouldn't make any sense. There is literally no race during the year they'd ride together other than the following WC. What would be the point?

There are lots of individual sports with only a few team events every year, so that wouldn't really be anything special. And actually I've always thought it would be a better solution, to have national teams. Imo the WC should be an event for national teams and not WT teams. Otherwise you could do the road race with world tour teams too.

+1 and just to complete, how many times a year do riders get to rider in the national team anyway ? once a year or twice in olympic years.. The difference would be minimal with national TTTs and btw if they became a staple of World Championships, what's to say they couldn't become olympic ?

I would like to see GB duking it out with NED, AUS, DEU, US, ESP and co personnally.

 

[veji11]

It really has no logic and it cost teams not small amount of money.
I do not wonder at all that they do not like it.

to be honest, they are being somewhat disingenuous here as the UCI created this event because it was wanted by some teams (Etixx, BMC and co) and it was a way of bringing those big sponsors into the WC... The overall point remains that having commercial teams' events at the WC makes no sense anyway.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

A National TTT wouldn't make any sense. There is literally no race during the year they'd ride together other than the following WC. What would be the point?

History!

If they're doing it as trade teams they should bring back the WT Eindhoven TTT, or have a standalone WT TTT.

If the World Championships has to have a TTT in it, there is only one acceptable format: the classic traditional way.

4 riders, 100km.

If it's not done this way, it's not worth doing.

 

[Red Rick]

If only they'd boycot the TTT's in stage races

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re:

If only they'd boycot the TTT's in stage races

Give one reason to do that?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

If only they'd boycot the TTT's in stage races

Give one reason to do that?

1) riders' times artificial, gives advantage to those naturally advantaged already by having the strongest teams
2) Michele Scarponi lost more time over 30km in the 2010 Giro than he lost over the entire other 3000+km - time he would never have lost to Basso if he hadn't had to rely on the TT skills of Jackson Rodríguez for his GC bid
3) the 2009 Tour, where if Levi hadn't crashed out the entire top 10 would have come from the top 4 TTT teams
4) they literally serve no purpose other than spectacle
5) every positive attribute you can levy regarding a TTT other than team selection can be achieved in much less artificial and unfair means by use of an ITT. As long as the ITT is being marginalized by stage race designers, the TTT is an unwanted substitute
6) stage races are scored individually, not by teams, so why should the team's time settle an individual's GC?
7) "it looks cool" is not an adequate substitute for fair racing

If it can't be a standalone event, then really the TTT needs sending back to the velodrome where it belongs and never darken public roads again.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

If only they'd boycot the TTT's in stage races

This :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[StryderHells]

Re: Re:

If only they'd boycot the TTT's in stage races

Give one reason to do that?

1) riders' times artificial, gives advantage to those naturally advantaged already by having the strongest teams
2) Michele Scarponi lost more time over 30km in the 2010 Giro than he lost over the entire other 3000+km - time he would never have lost to Basso if he hadn't had to rely on the TT skills of Jackson Rodríguez for his GC bid
3) the 2009 Tour, where if Levi hadn't crashed out the entire top 10 would have come from the top 4 TTT teams
4) they literally serve no purpose other than spectacle
5) every positive attribute you can levy regarding a TTT other than team selection can be achieved in much less artificial and unfair means by use of an ITT. As long as the ITT is being marginalized by stage race designers, the TTT is an unwanted substitute
6) stage races are scored individually, not by teams, so why should the team's time settle an individual's GC?
7) "it looks cool" is not an adequate substitute for fair racing

If it can't be a standalone event, then really the TTT needs sending back to the velodrome where it belongs and never darken public roads again.

This would be the first time I've ever read one of your posts and thought that it was complete nonsense

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I see literally no value to the TTT in stage races other than that it might encourage a more rounded selection, which I think you could do by virtue of better designed rouleur stages anyway. I hate them, I think they're boring to watch, they artificially mess up the GC and they serve no purpose that couldn't be served better with an ITT.

If you have any other argument in favour of the TTT in stage races (I don't class "it looks cool" as a worthwhile argument), please do tell.

 

[TMP402]

I've been thinking of a couple of twists on stages to make things more interesting.

1. A decent sized prologue (4-5km) but with riders let out in only 10 second intervals. Maybe lots of catches would make things a bit more interesting.
2. A mid-stage-race road stage of less than 15km, with riders released from the start line one per second in reverse GC order. Not a time trial, gaps would count as if it were a normal road stage. Would some back-marker like Sieberg manage to start first, get a gap and hold everyone off, or would it play out like a regular sprint stage and the GC guys released 2+ minutes after the lanterne rouge would manage to catch up to the sprint trains?

 

[Ricco']

Re:

I've been thinking of a couple of twists on stages to make things more interesting.

1. A decent sized prologue (4-5km) but with riders let out in only 10 second intervals. Maybe lots of catches would make things a bit more interesting.
2. A mid-stage-race road stage of less than 15km, with riders released from the start line one per second in reverse GC order. Not a time trial, gaps would count as if it were a normal road stage. Would some back-marker like Sieberg manage to start first, get a gap and hold everyone off, or would it play out like a regular sprint stage and the GC guys released 2+ minutes after the lanterne rouge would manage to catch up to the sprint trains?

I would like to see a pursuit style last stage on some competition. The first goes first, 80 km or more out. What would he do? Wait for the rest of the riders or try to go alone to the finish?

 

[Cannibal72]

I was actually thinking earlier today about how much I'd like to see a team pursuit in reverse individual GC order. I think it would be awesome to watch.
Do you shelter the key domestiques and risk losing time to a team that goes all out?
@LS: my thoughts on TTTs are that it doesn't straightforwardly come down to 'pack a team with rouleurs, beat up poorer teams, profit' (not that that's quite what you're saying). After all, Garmin-Slipstream-Cevelo-WTF were for many years the best TTT team out there, despite being very poor, because of the effort they put in. The amount of coaching it takes to build a coherent TTT squad is immense, and I think that having a team in sync with itself is a pretty reasonable thing to reward. Also, I reckon that it's cheaper to build a squad full of TT specialists than a mountain train. If a smaller team wanted to go all-in on TTT, they could probably manage it - which could prove a way to challenge Sky.

 

[This Charming Man]

A proper TTT is 100 k, either 2 or 4 man teams. Otherwise, pure spectacle, although goo in GTs, seperating wheat from chaff.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Everybody is forgetting that spectacle is that what cycling needs in order to keep surviving and attract new fans. For that reason only a TTT is a great asset of cycling.

 

[bassano]

I absolutelly agree with Libertine TTT is just nonsense
and if they want to keep show and attract new fans like someone said (which I also disagree TTT will do, mountain stages attract most of them)
they can just do it and count only for team classification, not for Individual