“In the past it was doping. Now it is financial doping” – Tour de France stage winner warns cycling has reached major crossroads for competitiveness
Cycling
Professional cycling’s next existential challenge may not be physiological, technological or tactical. According to Jan Bakelants, it is financial, and the consequences could quietly reshape the sport’s competitive balance for a generation.
Speaking in conversation with Het Laatste Nieuws, the former Tour de France stage winner drew a stark comparison between cycling’s past and present, arguing that the peloton is drifting back towards a familiar divide. “We are once again heading towards a two-speed peloton,” Bakelants said. “In the past it was caused by doping. Now it is caused by financial doping.”
Transfer power replacing sporting balance
Bakelants’ concern is not centred on individual riders changing teams, but on how easily wealthier squads can now dismantle smaller projects. The modern transfer system, he argues, increasingly mirrors football rather than cycling’s traditional ecosystem, with buy-outs and financial muscle overriding long-term development.
Teams operating with tighter budgets are particularly vulnerable. Once a rider performs beyond expectations, retaining them becomes less a sporting challenge and more a financial impossibility. In Bakelants’ view, that dynamic threatens the very purpose of WorldTour parity, allowing the strongest organisations to accumulate talent with minimal resistance.
Why budget gaps matter more than ever
The danger, Bakelants suggests, is structural rather than short-term. Sponsorship-driven teams depend on visibility to survive, yet visibility becomes harder to secure when talent is routinely siphoned upwards. Sponsors, he notes, expect a return, and diminishing exposure weakens the entire model.
That imbalance feeds itself. Riders increasingly prefer shared leadership roles at dominant teams over full responsibility elsewhere, even when both outfits sit at the same WorldTour level. “If you can ride for Team Visma | Lease a Bike, UAE Team Emirates - XRG, Lidl-Trek, Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, INEOS Grenadiers and now also Decathlon CMA CGM Team, your life looks very different compared to riding for Lotto-Intermarche,” Bakelants explained. “And that is also a WorldTour team.”
The numbers underline the issue. A multi-million-euro transfer may represent a manageable percentage of a super-team’s budget, while consuming a quarter of a smaller squad’s annual resources. “That is exactly my point,” Bakelants said. “A huge imbalance in budgets is emerging within the peloton.”
Bakelants himself retired at the end of the 2022 season
Lessons from Van der Poel and Alpecin
Bakelants points to Alpecin-Premier Tech as proof that alternative models can succeed, but only under circumstances that no longer exist. Their early commitment to Mathieu van der Poel allowed the team to grow organically before today’s hyper-aggressive transfer market fully took hold.
That timing, he argues, was decisive. “When he fully broke through on the road, the practice that is now becoming common was not yet really established,” Bakelants said. In today’s climate, such patience would likely be punished. “If Mathieu van der Poel had won his first big Classic now, an opportunistic team like INEOS or Lidl-Trek would certainly have jumped in with an astronomical offer.”
The difference, Bakelants believes, is that cycling has lost its natural protection mechanisms. Where once development, loyalty and gradual progression mattered, raw purchasing power increasingly dictates outcomes.
A warning rather than a prediction
Bakelants is not arguing that dominance by strong teams is new, but that the mechanisms behind it have changed in worrying ways. Without safeguards, he fears cycling risks entrenching inequality so deeply that upward mobility becomes the exception rather than the norm.
The crossroads he describes is therefore not merely financial, but philosophical. Whether the sport chooses to address that imbalance, or accept it, may determine how competitive professional cycling remains in the decade ahead.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- I get the point totally. We live in the snowflake society where some riders forget they are getting paid to ride and get results. When they have a few issues they try to look outside of the real issue instead of themselves. It odd so many of the team are making no complaints and getting on with their job. If you do not like what you do find another job simples. Tough love as my mum would say.paultryan200207-11-2026
- many people advise him to grow slowly and rather do giro and/or vuelta instead of tdf. but i can totally understand that he is not satisfied with taking over once pogi declines, but instead beat him in his prime. so if he goes for tdf again, i‘m all for it. let‘s hope that pogi recovers soon!Ketterechts07-11-2026
- So gracious to offer something no-one would be prepared to pay for. The Giro is not the Tour and doesn’t command the same interest or attract the same “elite” (those willing to pay to be a part of something they consider has ego boosting potential). Roadside viewing will always largely remain free for everyone outside circuits. Introduction of a symbolic entrance to mountain climbs is worthy of exploration. Asking 1-2€ isn’t going to repulse real fans (most will spend 50-100€ on their outing that day all things included) but will prevent a portion of the total knobhead thrillseekers who will join in any large gathering as long as it’s free, just because they’re attracted to crowds, without which it it difficult for them to work up their anti-social behaviour.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- How is radio going to help when someone went over a cliff or bridge or off the roadside into a forest unnoticed and is laying there unconscious?Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Yep, next we’ll be accusing F1 drivers of avoiding Le Mans.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- But on what is that opinion based? Are you holding him to a different standard than others? Are you saying he should do learn to like something he doesn’t Are you saying he hasn’t achieved enough Are you saying he pretends to be better than his results? It’s actually a really strange opinion to oust if you consider it objectively or rationally. Try applying it to others or yourself by asking if not EVERYONE should then be doing more? Nobody in athletics or swimming gets criticism for not expanding their repertoire when a rival or someone else does. In fact, most who move to another event get accused of running from their rival. Opinions are boring, the reasons behind them are what count.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- for a medical chief to throw things like is just bad. There are already radios which were banned for spectacle. allow radios. Gps trackers are not a complete solutionabstractengineer07-11-2026
- Yeah man...PogiSloFans07-11-2026
- any rider less than 25 whether they are really ready for the position of leadership of GT is probably not the case. I think Pogi himself suffered when he was defeated by Jonas in the TDF twice. But that would be the team's job to ensure support so that they can bounce back. It requires a team and time to get back up and win after getting knocked down.abstractengineer07-11-2026
- I'm very glad he got the big late Quickstep Vuelta win and I hope he has a few left for Euskaltel-Euskadi.flyer07-11-2026
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