Road Bike Racing - Tour Selection Criteria changes

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lotek
10-23-03, 02:50 PM
Wife just sent me this. 2004 tour is gonna be interesting folks.


PARIS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Tour de France organisers will announce the list
of teams admitted to the race before March 1 to avoid the controversy of
recent years.

"We reached a compromise between team chiefs who wished to be advised much
earlier in the season and us Tour organisers who wanted to keep open the
widest possible choice," said Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc.

The Tour chief said the entry list would be announced before March 1. It
will comprise the top 14 teams in the International Cycling Union (UCI)
rankings and eight wild cards.

"For wild cards, we will no longer take into account the early season
results like in the past but the strength of teams on paper," Leblanc
said.

Leblanc was criticised last season for refusing to select the team of
Italian world champion Mario Cipollini because their results were not good
enough.

georgesnatcher
10-23-03, 03:50 PM
Sounds to me like the same old business only done earlier. As long as LeBlanc is in charge you know that weak French teams will be selected over stronger non French teams. To say that they will not take results into account and instead go with "paper strength" means nothing. The only way I can see to do this fairly is to take the teams after the current champions team in order of UCI ranking. That way everyone knows where they stand and can react accordingly.
bac
10-24-03, 08:40 AM
"For wild cards, we will no longer take into account the early season
results like in the past but the strength of teams on paper," Leblanc
said.

French to English Translation: We will no longer even pretend that we are considering any non-French teams. :D