The organisors of the tdf are thinking of re-instating national teams for future tdf. This is in the hope of raising the profile of cycling worldwide as national teams attract more interest for the public than sponsored ones . This was last done in 1960.
As an alternative to trade teams ?
If it was done in a cycle, say every 4 years, that might be quite interesting.
Otherwise I don't see how it would be accepted by the trade teams because they'd rather their riders won other races wearing their jerseys.
Wikipedia for the 1960 race :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Tour_de_France
I guess you can ask how many teams would be competitive and how many good riders would miss out ?
Here are the number of riders per nationality for the 2012 TdeF:
France 43
Spain 21
Netherlands 18
Italy 15
Belgium 14
Germany 13
Australia 12
US 8
Denmark, UK, Russia 5
Belarus, Kazakhstan 4
Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine 3
Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, South-Africa 2
Argentina, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Croatia, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, New-Zealand, Poland 1
They fell into 22 teams of 9 riders. OK lets have fewer teams for safety... but what happens to the likes of the Schlecks, Ryder Hesjedal, Boassan-Hagen ? The day to day racing would be very different but for the likes of Spain, you'd have an incredible team that could dominate GC totally.
Would Amaury be ok with 9 French riders instead of 43 ?
