Should the grand tours be shorter?

[smutchin]

Let's get something straight - three GTs in a season is likely to knacker a rider for months, it's simply too much. ...
Nothing wrong with three week GTs...

If the sport's flagship events are too difficult for the sport's stars to compete in all of them, then clearly something is wrong. The extreme difficulty of the Vuelta is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.

The relevance of the comparison with tennis is that tennis has pitched the level of difficulty more appropriately: if they made the grand slams three weeks long and the matches best of nine sets, you might well start to see the big names targeting individual events rather than competing in all of them.

 

[smutchin]

One thing I think needs consideration is what is the view of the ideal distribution of the longer stage races in 20 years time.
History is one thing but to say that three adjacent European countries should perpetually monopolise the highest level 3 week stage races every year, is odd

Some good points there. Isn't the problem that the big events are owned by companies like ASO rather than by the UCI?

Of course, if that changed we could end up with the situation in football where the flagship event ends up in entirely unsuitable places like Qatar.

 

[thom]

Some good points there. Isn't the problem that the big events are owned by companies like ASO rather than by the UCI?

Of course, if that changed we could end up with the situation in football where the flagship event ends up in entirely unsuitable places like Qatar.

Yes, the notion of race ownership changes and being at least sanctioned by the UCI implicitly makes them somehow an event organiser, which was part of a problem the UCI got itself into in the past. It isn't clear how that could be made sufficiently transparent however if a body was assigning both a 3 week and a 2 week tour every year (with a Tour/Giro/Vuelta on some kind of rota), then the it isn't like a football world cup or Olympics that is only held every 4 years, more like the annual World Championships. We do have 2 or 3 early season events already on the Arabian peninsula which seem soundly organised. Perhaps they don't offer enough of a challenge for a Grand Tour but maybe that could be a formal condition of award.

Perhaps the third lengthy tour could be a 2 week tour that is a part of the World Championship itself, immediately giving additional prestige to a shorter stage race and perhaps bringing it within the scope of riders like Sagan or Tony Martin even.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Let's get something straight - three GTs in a season is likely to knacker a rider for months, it's simply too much. Ignoring the few GC riders, it's all the rest of the teams as well.

I doubt it was ever meant to be a circuit where we expect all the stars to attend all 3. TDF is the pinnacle and similar to the Olympics. Giro comes in second, closely followed by the V. I am also glad that all 3 have distinctly different in terms of organisation, flavour and taste. I hate to see it ever follow the Tennis style where its nearly the same. Thank god for Wimbledon and the French Open.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Perhaps if they just used the Vuelta as an over-35s event?

 

[Arrowfoot]

Perhaps if they just used the Vuelta as an over-35s event?

It makes sense, even commercially in view of the participation rate in this fast growing segment of society. The US Golf senior tour is now very lucrative including for sponsors.

 

[rich p]

Perhaps if they just used the Vuelta as an over-35s event?

Who do you think might win it?
Maybe they should reprieve Armstrong so he could give Horner a good run for his money?

 

[Mrs M]

Oleg seems to think so......http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/30632423

Oh, that Oleg, thought it was Little Baby Oleg.
No.

 

[The Couch]

Although I don't argue with the fact that the financial picture needs to (continue to) make sense, not sure if the comparison with other sports makes sense

If the sport's flagship events are too difficult for the sport's stars to compete in all of them, then clearly something is wrong. The extreme difficulty of the Vuelta is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.
The relevance of the comparison with tennis is that tennis has pitched the level of difficulty more appropriately: if they made the grand slams three weeks long and the matches best of nine sets, you might well start to see the big names targeting individual events rather than competing in all of them.

In tennis, you often have players who (due to the heavy calendar in the last decade) get injured/are too fatigued and have to let grand slams slide (e.g. Murray, Nadal, S. Williams often - have to - do it), so not all Grand Slams are always the battle of the best players

In basketball, often US players prefer not to go to the World Championships (and comparable) tournaments, because of the gruesome NBA season. Actually often players (need to) rest during the season (San Antonio Spurs is the best example here) and mostly all NBA teams rest their best players in the last week(s) of the competition, so often you have "top-matches" that are seriously weakened because of top-players not playing. And here as well, it often happens that good players get injured during play-offs ("their GTs") partly because of their body wearing down due to the hard season.

In football, you have the "international team competition" (FIFA Club World Cup) which is a joke, since the Champion's league winner should be hands-down the best team (with the winner of the Copa Libertadores as "closest" team), but the European team often doesn't bother that much and the other teams are much more motivated. So many times here the winner of the "Tour de France" (Champion's League) often doesn't bother with (and doesn't win) this "Vuelta".

Then again, in snooker, most tournaments have a relatively small number of best-of-games (e.g. 11), while only(?) the World's require much more winning frames.
So this would be a "make the Tour de France the hardest one" comparison.


Personally I like watching all 3 GTs (as I also like watching 1-day races like Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix) and I don't mind that other names get a shot at "the other GTs", it's especially interesting for the younger guys (in latest years Quintana, Betancur, Majka, Aru) who have a better shot at getting a top 10 GC and for them to get some time to grow.
...I am always willing to see how shorter GTs would be
(but personally I fear a bit that taking away 1 week would eat most into the break-away/medium-mountain stages which are often very nice to see as well)