Points Mean - er - A Future!

Stop groaning, this is important stuff. Yes, I can hear you saying "Who cares about the ins and outs of cycling, we want pictures of Unndy!" but I don't have enough followers yet, so you are going to have to discuss some more INTERESTING facets of pro-cycling first.

And it is interesting! It's fascinating! It could change the whole look of cycling...not necessarily a good thing, either. Read on....

In my last post I suggested the notion that Contador's ban might have implications for SaxoBlank if his UCI points were taken away from him. (by the way, who gets them? Are they shuffled down to the guys in second, third etc places, as the prize money is?) Now it looks as though the points won't be taken away, bizarrely. Miserable McQuaid told Cycling News:  "The points were calculated in October and even if Contador was sanctioned and lost his Tour de France victory, the points would stay the same. I know some teams might be angry about this but I don't think we left ourselves open to a legal challenge." If I worked for Geox, matey, I'd be consulting my lawyers right about now....

Which leads to POINTS. To date, UCI points seem to have been considered of less importance than position - riders are described in terms of their podium positions. You know, second in this race, won two stage victories in that race, etc.

You will all remember that the UCI are specifying how many ProTeams must be invited to what level of race, to avoid situations where a race organiser can refuse to invite a Pro Team just out of spite: or "political necessity" if you wish to be tactful. I refer to RadioShack's shameful lack of invite to the Giro last year.  Now the UCI say that all ProTeams must attend all races in their calendar, so hopefully that won't happen again - as long as the race organisers abide by the rules...but that's a separate issue.

This makes it all the more important to get that ProTeam status, and that is done by getting lots of UCI points. Or, to be accurate, having riders in your team who have lots of UCI points.

But there's a twist: as per my last post, I haven't been able to find out if the UCI count all the points of all the riders in a team, or just the top 15. Lovely Lovely Boyfriend and I spent a long time trying to work this out, as he was sure that he'd read somewhere that only the top 15 rider scores count.... but as I've mentioned, reading the UCI rules for any length of time is like having your soul sucked very, very slowly out of your body, and is therefore not to be recommended.  Thanks to Susanne who found that news report mentioned above, we have also learned that "The UCI has refused to reveal the details of the points system" which explains why we couldn't find anything.  Damn, I want my soul back!

And until the UCI choose to reveal their strategy, we won't know how they work it out... and there is also some speculation - well, between me and LLB at any rate - that the UCI will always keep their exact reasons secret, in order to allow them a bit of leeway if there are teams that appear to tick all the boxes, but that for some reason they wish to exclude. Or of course to allow in a team that doesn't quite make it otherwise....

However the UCI work it, points are going to be a large slice of the decision-making, so what does this mean to team tactics in 2011?

It means that teams are going to have to concentrate their points around certain riders.  It's no good having 26 riders all with 40 points if only the top 15  count.

No more allowing a top domestique to "have a good day" - those points would be better if they were added to a top rider's score.

No more "allowing a non-GC-threat to have the stage win" to be nice: those points might come in handy later on.

No more "just scoot home somewhere in the group, we all get the same time" - if you are not going for GC, then the difference between third over the line and 8th over the line could be crucial.....

Even if the "top 15 scores only" turns out to be a red herring (FeeDee and other students of English slang: expression meaning "a false trail", sometimes deliberately introduced, sometimes accidentally. Now use this expression in an everyday sentence...) it will still be  necessary to fight for points positions, rather than being satisfied with being at the rear of a group.

I think it'll be interesting this year to see if there are any noticeable changes in rider strategy in respect of this situation.

Personally, I'm not at all keen on it: the main reason I follow ProCycling is that it is such a darned NICE sport. I hate the violence, spite, thuggish behaviour and bad manners of most sports, and I have always relished the many "unwritten rules" of the peloton.

Last year's TdF Barredo incident, for example, where two riders were fighting, was (in my opinion) deeply disgraceful, and there should have been ejections from the Tour, not a feeble month-long ban.

OK they were fighting like complete pansies (FeeDee: "like girlies") but still, if I wanted to see fisticuffs I'd be a fan of football or something oafish like that.

So, I'd rather see a continuation of the "give a domestique a stage" philosophy, rather than seeing every man out for himself. It has always been a team sport, hasn't it? (*somewhat plaintively!*)