Bjarne Riis: Man with a Plan

LLB and I were discussing the cycling, and the Contador case, over a candle-lit dinner (belated St Valentine's Day) last night, while sipping our bubbley wine and - oh, whoops, were we supposed to be whispering sweet nothings to each other?  Drat, we never get this romance thing right....

Anyway, LLB and I were discussing the case, and the implications for Bjarne and the SaxoBank boys.

Of course, he doesn't particularly care about SaxoBank, and I must admit that I'm a little confused as to why I - and all us Schlecklanders - are so loyal to what is now, after all, "two teams ago"... but there you go, we all think that it's wrong for SaxoBank to suffer because of what Contador did (accidentally) when he rode for Astana.

We were discussing the possibility of SaxoBank being demoted to Pro-Continental this early in the season, and of course we both agree that they don't stand a chance of being selected as a ProTeam next year, what with their main points-winner out of the running until August, and even then, not allowed to gain points for the team for a further two years.

"Are you mad, Bjarne?" is the phrase that comes to mind: I mean, loyalty is all well and good, and Bjarne has been staggeringly loyal to Contador:  way, way above and beyond the call of duty. I can't help feeling that many teams would have given a rider the shove the very minute that he'd proved positive for doping, whatever the reason or background. But Bjarne has stood firm, and has already said that Contador will be welcome back on August 5th with a new contract.

Interestingly,  Contador himself phrased it as though he might, as a special favour, go back to Saxo, whereas you would expect him to be grovellingly grateful, wouldn't you? I can't find the news report that I am referring to - isn't that always the way, and of course it may well have lost something in the translation, but it certainly sounded as though Contador "would consider" rejoining SaxoBank later in the year.

Leaving that aside, maybe Bjarne isn't as bonkers as we thought.

OK, so SaxoBlank are unceremoniously thrown out of the Pro-Team league, and have to languish in Pro-continental for at least one year, if not two, as Contador can't earn points for them, and he is - let's face it - their main points earner. In fact, as an aside (cries of "What! Another aside?" from all around), how are they doing in the league so far this year, I wonder. Shall we take a look?

Oh look, how pleasing, RadioShack are top of the league, heh heh heh, and hey Leelu, look at GreenEdge, there in third place, fantastic! What a great start to the new team for them.  And Sky, my second team (*waves Union Jack flag* ) (Actually, I have to *pretend* to wave it, as I still, to my eternal embarrassment, don't have a Union Jack. Well, only on my waste bin, and it would be positively dangerous to wave a metal waste bin around, wouldn't it?) are in there at 4th position.  Yay!

And where are SaxoBank? Nowhere to be seen. Oh dear. I rest my case.

Actually, *looks furtively over shoulder*, nor have BMC, so perhaps we shouldn't read too much into that...

So what point am I eventually going to make? Right, what happens if Saxo are sent down from the ProTeam league this year, and kept down for at least next year?

Well, they don't get automatic invites to the ProTeam races, and we all assume that this is going to be disastrous.

But it might not be....

Think about it: Contador can't win UCI points for them. But if they accept being ProContinental for a couple of years, it won't matter.

They won't get automatic invites: true, but that does mean that they no longer HAVE to attend all the UCI races, they can pick and choose among the smaller ones, and let's face it, what race organiser is going to turn down the chance to get Contador in their race? I imagine they will be top of the wild-card list.

So they pick the races they want, Contador will definitely be invited to go to the Vuelta, almost definitely the Giro, and very very likely to the Tour: he can still win things, they go on his palmares: he gets prize money for the team, they just don't get UCI points.

AND, final and compelling argument, it's a lot cheaper to run a Pro-Continental team than it is to run a ProTeam. SaxoBank are having sponsor problems, and what better to please the sponsor than to reduce running costs, yet still get invites to all the big races, and get tons and tons of publicity, all the way. After all, the cycling press are going to be counting down the minutes until Contador can score points again, they will no doubt be constantly calculating how many points he "would" have won, and where he "would" be sitting in the rankings - it's all publicity.

In fact, if it comes to publicity, maybe this is what Saxo Bank (the Bank) wanted:  the case has made main news now,  they've got their name out way, way beyond the cycling world. Perhaps that's why they've changed their mind about withdrawing their sponsorship?  Mind you, I'm sure I am not the only one taking all this "we will support Contador right through the ban" stuff with a large pinch of salt, as we have rather heard that sort of thing before, Mr Becca, I am looking at you *death-ray eyes*.

So there you have it, the Schleckland Theory Of The Day: Bjarne Riis is not bonkers, after all!