MAY | THE COMMENTATOR
I want to ride my bicycle
Martin Fullard on
cycling’s cash
injection
C
ycling’s increase in
popularity since the
London Olympic Games
is no secret. The roads are
awash with luminous leotards
and grumpy men with stubble
looking to chip eight tenths of a
second off their 60-mile Tour de
Surrey Hills.
It’s this level on enthusiasm
that has attracted some of the
world’s biggest brands to get
involved, and now you can even
read about cycling races in the
newspapers.
But, as with football and
Formula 1, when does the money
become too stupid?
In March, UK chemicals
firm Ineos was confirmed as
the new sponsor of what we
know as Team Sky, which is
led by Sir Dave Brailsford.
Ineos, which is owned
by Britain’s richest man Sir
Jim Ratcliffe, will potentially
increase the team’s current
£35m budget.
I’m sorry, but a Formula
1 team can spend £75m on
designing, building, and
running a two-car team over 21
42
races with some 100 personnel,
and the last time I checked, a
Formula 1 car is pheromonally
more technologically advanced
than a bicycle.
Team Sky currently has 29
riders on its roster, and some of
them are the biggest names
in the sport, like Chris
Froome and Geraint
Thomas, but I can’t work
out why a cycling team
could need such a vast
sum of money.
EF Education First Pro
Cycling’s Jonathan Vaughters
said on the popular cycling
podcast, BeSpoke, that Ineos is
effectively “buying certainty…
purchasing the ability to
win.”
He said: “You’re looking
at an almost impenetrable
wall of money. You can
basically go buy all the best
riders. The question for
the sport is if they are all
on one team, is it fun for
spectators to watch?
“If you think of it
in terms of chess, it’s
essentially like you’re
buying more queens.
“Even if your strategy
is off, or you have
bad luck, you’re still
going to win the race.”
Dave Brailsford has five or six
queens on the team. Most teams
can only afford one queen.
“So, if Chris Froome isn’t good,
Geraint Thomas can win. If
Thomas isn’t good, Egan Bernal
can win. Michal Kwiatkowski, a
former world champion, is down
the succession and in any other
team he would be the diamond
of the team.
“Even if your strategy is off,
or you have bad luck, you’re still
going to win the race as you’ve
gone over the top financially by
such a large margin.”
To me this sounds like a
vanity project. Sure, Team Sky
have won seven of the last eight
Tour de Frances, but when the
sport becomes predictable, fans
turn away. My advice? If these
cyclists are so good, give them
each a Raleigh Chopper for £100
each and let’s see how many
more people tune in to watch. I
would.