Yello - you did not answer my critique of your comment. We, your readers, still await enlightenment.
You then refer to "....you know there are teams...." well I had said so in the previous post, so probably quite a few readers managed to work that out, but thanks for your reinforcing comment anyway. I am sure there is somebody somewhere who appreciates it. You then mix together ".....nationals, worlds, GTs, one dayers, ...." Again, you are seriously confusing yourself. Please read my previous post.
I go on the Tour Web Site. I am urged in the first box, in the prime place on the first page, that I should go to the team competition section and urged to understand how team competition is really, very important. Now I don't think that is the case, and I don't think A.S.O. think that either, but they have motives I can well imagine, for trying to generate interest in this aspect of the race, at this stage of the race.
The national championships could be a team competition but that is not how it is set up or has been set up for many years. There is no team prize and no team competition. It is obviously an individual event and historically the rules made that very clear. However it is unique in road racing in being an event for individuals, everything else involving road racing, at a quality level, requires equal sized teams, as a starting point. On the track there are a variety of events at National and International level which are team or individual events, and which have rules making this clear. The points race at National Championships level is very clearly an individual race with a requirement that riders look to defend their own interests, whilst an event such as the Commonwealth Games (CG) allows teams of up to 3 riders from one nation to work together as a team, but that national teams do not collude.
Golf prides itself on honour and respect being part of the rules. Football decides that it does not penalise diving and conning the referee. Abuse of the referee is part of the entertainment. Critics of Manchester United (MU) state that decisions seem to go with MU more than the opposition. Statistics clearly show that referees appear either (i) not to be even-handed in their application of the rules or (ii) away teams seem to have a unique failure in discipline, when set against their season average, when visiting Old Trafford. Back-chat a Rugby Union ref and the penalty is moved 5 metres closer to the try line. Open your mouth again and you are off the pitch. Famously, Rob Hayles was disqualified for leading out Mark Cavendish in the points race so that Mark could win the final sprint and snatch Gold from the Aussie at the Melbourne CG. Non- medalist Hayles was disqualified from the results and Cavendish's win was allowed to stand over the disadvantaged Aussie. Quite what this could do for the standing of cycling was entirely lost on myself. Riders have been disqualified in the National Track champs for colluding in individual events. My point is that it is not the athletes that set the tone, it is the managers and officials and the authors of the rules. Rules are not inviolate.
The current problem (blind eye & desire to re-interpret the rules) regarding the Road National Championships, relates to the relationship between (i) British Cycling, (ii) the World Class Performance Program, (iii) the managers and riders of the professional team sponsored by Sky media, (iv) Sky media's cash investment in promoting cycling to a wider audience and (v) Sky Sports prime commercial status as the sport's media outlet. Undoubtedly, given the weight and controlling position of these vested interests, any voice in opposition, is, currently, a cry in the wilderness.
We are then at the paired points of "...how would you police it..." and ".... the riders themselves seem content with it (with occasional exceptions!)..." Well my first memories of riders not being happy with unfair conduct by other riders colluding to produce and unfair result goes back to the early 70's and Barry Hoban's comments. Multiple teams ganged up to ensure that Barry and the then minority of Continental based UK professional riders, never got a look in, year after year. The result was so obviously unfair and a farce then, to every right minded person, as it has been on several occasions since. Aggrieved riders then and now are caught in a dilemma. The reception by the interested fans of any form of complaint from a rider is significantly shaped by the reactions of the media and the officials in charge. Given the prejudice and financial and personal investment of so many controlling interests in the current outcome, there is not 1 chance in 10,000 that any rider at the butt end of Sky's tactics would make any complaints public. To do so would ensure that any chance of selection for (i) the WCPP, (ii) Team Sky, or (iii) representative honours for Team GB, was so significantly downgraded as to be nearly invisible. So we are then at the gift of those charged, or in the case of the sport of cycling in the UK, who have volunteered themselves to be in the position, to be responsible for upholding the rules. And there we have it. These volunteer officials can make a decision. They can make comment to the press, either in anticipation of what they know is likely to happen or post the event, on what did happen. They have many tools at their disposal to influence the conduct of the race. They can turn a blind eye. They can pretend that team-work is allowed in National Championships.
Compare and contrast our point of discussion with a far lesser sin - that purportrated by Hammish Haynes in 2006. He sat on Roger, did not do his fair share and won. Roger was so obviously the best rider in that race on the day. I am sure Hammish was delighted at the time. Now, 5 years on and with a Wiki page devoid of anything apart from that win and his career over, I wonder if Hammish has it in his mind that, in the future, he will entertain his grand-children at his knee with - "the day I robbed Roger". It is not exactly "daring do". Most right minded people thought his win hollow on the very day it happened. Hammish made a duff decision, when caught up in the excitement of moment. That is entirely different from the vested, interwoven and deliberately colluding interests of BC/WCPP/SKY and the senior staff in those organisations.
