Now that PCC voted for extra Grand Tour wildcards, will UCI verify the exception to rules? Final verdict on Monday!
Cycling
There is only a bit more than a month left until the Grande Partenza of Giro d'Italia, this year in Albania. Yet we still don't know which ProTeams will be at the start. Besides Israel - Premier Tech with its automatic invitation, there are still four serious candidates for the three available wildcards.
And since the situation is similar also over at the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, the request has been submitted by race organizers to allow for an extra wild card to be handed out this season, something that understandably wasn't met with appreciation of WorldTour teams.
The matter is more than pending and in order to get closer to final verdict, UCI's Professional Cycling Council (PCC) met on Wednesday to vote on whether this joint request should be granted. Most of the council members voted in favor. Next Monday, the UCI Management Committee will decide whether they will actually ratify the request.
The vote in the PCC was initiated by the AIOCC, the association of race organizers. Remarkably enough, the subject was supported by the AIGCP, the association of professional teams. This while the WorldTeams were jointly against the idea of extra wildcards.
It is said that the objections of the supporters were ignored by the AIGCP voting party. In the vote, twelve interest groups (six of which were UCI members) were allowed to choose whether or not to grant an extra wildcard to the organizations of major tours.
A majority of the PCC voted in favor. The UCI also announced in a press release that in addition to the AIOCC and AIGCP, the riders' representatives will also put this topic on the agenda. Next Monday, the UCI Management Committee (the highest body in cycling) will announce whether the request from the PCC will actually go ahead.
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- And he probably wasn’t even at the limit ;-) Have to wonder how much Mads could catch up if he’d tune his physique to be as sharp as MVDPs’Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Respect for giving Van Eetvelt credit there.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- He’s already a star for me for HAVING complained about it, the recent trend having been, let them then try to take advantage by making them sign NDAs ;-)Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Agreed, but if it was a radio thing then all the riders should have the same story and it would be easy to call anyone out. Kind of surprised this isn’t cleared up half officially afterwards, just like the Alaphilippe divorce, seems like once something spreads on the net it kind of gets accepted that everyone wants to have their own truth so no-one bothers to contest anything that’s verifiable anymore, we all just move on.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- maybe. what makes that a LITTLE fishy is that they suddenly hit the gas and started hammering it. even mathieu, who i’ve never heard complain about ANYTHING (other than teenage girls waking him up and being spit on by belgians) was pretty hacked off about the race tactics after the split. i think he was upset for what his teammates had to do, not for the fact he ended up isolated as a result.OCexile31-03-2025
- It seems that in E3 it wasn’t legit to criticise teams that « took advantage » because there was no radio communication about the incident so they couldn’t know to slow down. Only one source so far but should be quite easy to verify.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- mads SMOKED it at ghent! love that guy. he’s just the best interview ever, always smart and hilarious and with a biting intolerance for stupidity. happy for him. just as a secondary thought, consider that mvdp beat THAT version of mads by a full minute at E3 two days ago. the gap between pog/mvdp and even tho other GREAT riders like mads is kinda staggering to comprehend. this is a time in cycling history that’s certainly worth paying attention to while it lasts.OCexile31-03-2025
- i watched the race. jasper and roodhooft have a legit anger about this. alpecin burned everyone to pull it back. they did the SAME THING after the split in E3, burning all their guys and thus leaving mathieu to fend for himself (which worked out ok because van der poel is van der poel, but still…). yeah, christopher and jasper should be a little pissed this time.OCexile30-03-2025
- Mads, Ganna, MvdP, Pogi were all in MSR, and will all be in both RVV and PR, the problem here is Remco because he doesn't race anything. This year because of injuries, before that, no idea why notvappaxbipmv30-03-2025
- Will it take oil money to get Mads, Remco, Tadej, Ganna and MVDP to line up for the same classic or monument or will Lady Luck help us with this one.Mistermaumau30-03-2025