Grinding through the rumor mill
Some interesting things going on in the pro racing scene. Last week Twitter and list groups were alive with chatter about various aspects of the pro peloton. Things ended up with a surprise.
We already knew that the USA Cycling Professional Championships would be in Greenville come 2010. However, a week or so after the announcement word started going out that the time for the race would change. The first rumor I heard was that it would be early in the year.
That would be a bummer. That would mean that George Hincapie would have very little opportunity to race in his US Champion’s jersey. The good news is that rumor proved to be false. The rumor that the date would change was true, but the new date is actually later than last year’s event.
The release from USA Cycling – “The Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships will return to Greenville, S.C. for a fifth consecutive year in 2010, with new dates set for September 18-19, 2010. The Championship weekend features the USA Cycling Professional Time Trial Championship on Saturday and the USA Cycling Professional Road Race Championship on Sunday.”
The Greenville County Council got some undeserved negative mentions. A committee in the council decided to scale back some of the $15,000 that was being allotted to the September event. What wasn’t said in the Greenville News article was that the council had committed to $50,000 for the Championships for each of the next three years. In other words, they are earmarking $150,000 for the purpose of trying to encourage the race to come back for future years as well. Also, some of the $15,000 may still be channeled to the race.
There were plenty of other rumors going on, but only one of them reached a conclusion — at least to my knowledge! Who would have thought that Cadel Evans would end up going to BMC? Who would have thought that going into 2010 that BMC would have the last two World Champions and the current US Champion? Hmmmm, wonder if they’ll get a Tour invite this year?
The Cantador rumors still pop up. Where will he be in 2010? One of the last ones I heard was that he would go to the old Silence-Lotto team. I can’t imagine that he would do that. Then again, had you asked me Friday if I thought Cadel would go to BMC…
Tags: 2010 USA Pro Championships, Alberto Contador, BMC, Cadel Evans, George Hincapie
Thanks for keeping us straight!!!
Hey Jonathan, I follow you on twitter (im Zacdc) and I love reading your blog, but anyways.
Should I be as shocked as I am about Cadel coming to BMC???
Zac, consider this from Cyclingnews.com:
Evans took the exit clause in his contract with Silence-Lotto and moved to Andy Rihs’ team, co-owned by former US Cycling head honcho Jim Ochowicz and managed by former Phonak directeur sportif John Lelangue. He signed a three-year deal to ride beside the likes of experienced campaigners George Hincapie, Karsten Kroon and 2008 world champion Alessandro Ballan.
Evans’ Tour experience obviously took its toll and he capitalised on the momentum in the BMC squad. “It [the move] had been in the works for a while – well before the world championships…We just wanted to do everything correctly, within the rules in terms of confidentiality and so on,” he said.
“When the idea first occurred to me I thought, ‘It’s BMC, not a big team or anything…and of course when I’m making a decision like this I do a fair bit of research. Then we looked at the names [in the team] and the plans they have plus where they want to go, etc – everybody wants to go to the Tour de France in 2011,” said Evans.
“At that point Andy Rihs and John Lelangue said, ‘Maybe you’d be interested in going to the Tour in 2010…’ I thought, ‘Oh…’ We had a couple of meetings and it was amazing how everything was in place and ready to go – I was just like, ‘This is just such a neat fit for me’. John Lelangue lives in Belgium and we have a Swiss manufacturer for our bikes [as headline sponsor]. The company wants to improve its bikes the best way it can, using a professional team to do so. I thought, ‘This is already a good start.’”
While BMC Racing hasn’t received an official invitation to next year’s Tour de France, it will be riding the Giro d’Italia, with a Tour berth looking more likely. And after Silence-Lotto struggled for years to deliver Evans a team capable of adequately supporting the Australian in France’s Grand Tour, maybe looking a little closer to his adopted home may be the secret to finally making that top step come July 25 next year.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/cadel-evans-the-cycling-gods-must-be-crazy