Everyone back to their seats

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Victor Cordero(Image credit: AFP)

News feature, December 12, 2005

Victor Cordero: There has been no news these last 48 hours. The main topic now is to set up a vision of the three Grand Tours in terms of how things should go for 2006 and the coming years. Let's not forget that we took into account a letter from the UCI which we received around 12 days ago, telling us that there was no chance of negotiating, there were no more discussions, that they agreed to establish the same system in 2006 as in 2005, and in which they already announced to put us into a, let's say, separate calendar in 2007.

So, the situation today [Sunday, December 11, 2005] is that the organisers of the Giro, Vuelta and Tour have decided to set up this basis in 2006, that will be put into practice in 2007 when [the UCI intended to] create the separated calendar. And the fundamental basis is: the chance for the 20 ProTour teams to ride the races freely, not compulsorily in 2006. If the 20 teams want to, they will be welcome. If some of them don't want to, it doesn't matter. In 2007, the 14 best teams will be invited on the grounds of a classification that will award points from these three races. The rest, up to eight possible wildcards, will be given by invitation.

VC: Yes, we have Milan-San Remo, Giro di Lombardia, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico; they are important races indeed. Since the World Championships in Verona in October 2004, we have been saying that the ProTour as it is built is not the reform that cycling needed. We tried to convince the other parties involved that it wasn't the correct reform and we suggested our ProTour change proposal for the good of cycling in general. They [the UCI] didn't want to hear, they couldn't hear. I'd like to think that there was good will, but that they didn't understand us.

What nobody can expect us to believe that they enforce some rules upon us in 2006, and then for 2007 they say "it's all up to you"; that's what they said in the letter. They enforce this from an institution that excluded us, because we were sent off the UCI ProTour council. We assume our historical responsibility; we have the commitment to organise the three greatest races in the world. From the very beginning, these races were in hands of companies that have achieved so much with this commitment. We, who currently manage them, will keep on fulfilling it. We want cycling to be a single sport and managed [the Grand Tours] with a business view.

VC: Actually, I can't imagine it. I don't imagine it because we will do the Vuelta a España launch next Wednesday where our Giro and Tour friends will visit us and they [the UCI] told us in a letter that Mr. McQuaid will not come, that Alain Rumpf and Mr. [Vittorio] Adorni [members of the ProTour council] won't come. We should have said "welcome", but instead it will be "well, absent". It doesn't matter, it's not a problem if they don't attend. They told us this in a letter with the same text [apparently the same words were used in two different letters - ed.], something which is pitiful. That means they don't even think of the letters they write.

It's true that there are quotes said by McQuaid [to L'Equipe] yesterday [Saturday, December 10] where he opens the chance for discussion and understanding for the good of cycling. I honestly believe McQuaid is a much more open person to discuss than his predecessor [Hein Verbruggen], we can deal with him better, and this truly relieves the tension for a while at this time - but I don't see a way [forward with the UCI]. I mean, I can not imagine cycling without the Tour de France. They wanted to suffocate it, where [in the UCI offices] they should have protected this race's huge richness; it represents a lot for all of us. The UCI exists because of the Tour de France.

It's true that few changes will be noticed in 2006 [even though] the 20 ProTour teams will be able to choose whether they ride [the Grand Tours]. On December 10, with all the teams already in training camps, we couldn't tell them that they won't ride this race or that race if they [already] had it scheduled. We care about the teams' worries and we assume this worry as ours. The doors are open [to ride] the three Grand Tours for all ProTour teams in 2006.

In 2007, they will have to win this right based on a classification. This was another basic problem that we saw with the ProTour. It was a kind of privilege for four years; it doesn't fit in our conception of sport in Europe where there are ins and outs, upgrades and relegations which are achieved on the road. And not because someone decides that a team gets to "play the [football] Champions League" for four years [for example].

From that point of view, anything is possible. But it won't be possible if someone puts the consideration of a marketing project above a sporting project again. What we all have in common is a sporting project and that's what we have to develop. The sporting project should consider that cycling has a huge pyramidal basis! From the children's categories up to the elite, what shouldn't have been done is create a divide in cycling, which we think the ProTour is. It's four years in a bubble that comes down to earth every four years; it opens for a moment and then closes again. There's no way back to that. We have definitely discarded that.