POLL: Substitutions for riders abandoning in the first week of a Grand Tour, good idea or not?

Cycling
Tuesday, 06 February 2024 at 18:05
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Movistar Team boss, Eusebio Unzué sparked a big debate in the cycling world on Tuesday morning when proposing his ideas for the future of the sport. 
One of the suggestions posed was the introduction of substitutions for teams in Grand Tours if one of their riders were to abandon in the opening week. "Why not allow substitutes when a rider is forced to abandon a Grand Tour during the first week? All teams prepare 10-12 riders for a Grand Tour, so you still got 2 or 3 of them at home," said Unzue to L'Equipe. 
As mentioned, the response to this proposal has taken hold of cycling social media, with various differing views on whether or not it is a good idea. We like to think of ourselves as a fan-led community at CyclingUpToDate, as seen by our End of Year Awards voted for by yourself at the end of 2023.
So when we received a number of messages asking for a poll to be put up about whether Unzue is onto something or not, we completely agreed!
So we want to know your thoughts! Does Unzue has a good suggestion, could substitutions be something for future Grand Tours? Or is the potential of teams with bigger squads bending the rule to their advantage too off-putting? Let us know in the poll below and explain your reasons in the comments!

Poll

Substitutions for riders abandoning in the first week of a Grand Tour?

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7 Comments
abstractengineer 09 February 2024 at 17:58+ 3201

You could have subs but for every team not just for sickness or crash like football. A sub cannot win stages, points or time, their job is mainly to help the team as that would be unfair to the rider already in the race. Max of 2 subs

fabric 09 February 2024 at 18:58+ 2

Exactly. This can't just be "sub whoever you like." It's a team sport folks. If you came to support Cavendish, and he crashes out on day 2, you have to really scramble. 30 years ago, this would be stupid. But today, where you frequently have 7 riders working fully for 1, stuff outside your control can have an outsize impact.

*limit the number of substitutions. 2, 3 max.
*subs can't compete for overall prizes (GC, points, etc). You need to do the full race for that.
*You have to submit the team roster with the possible subs ahead. Teams going for GC may want to bring in domestiques. Stage hunting teams might want to target sprints or breakaways. But it's set.
*No subs last week maybe?
*qualified reasons to sub. Crash (team has limited subs, are you really going to switch somebody out for road rash?). Fever above 100º.

I don't see why this couldn't work, and I think the idea should not be dismissed out of hand. Maybe they also can't compete for stages. Maybe everyone gets to do 1 sub first week, 1 then other. Team time maybe is just top 5.

Maybe you have a "joker" sub. You get to sub in a guy for 1 day, but then the previous rider has to come back. Eliminates you for the overall competitions if you get subbed out, but you can still race for stages.

At what point are cyclists going to realize that being stodgy old tradionalists is not going to bring in new fans and riders?

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AlaskanDaveDownUnder 07 February 2024 at 05:24+ 16

Too easy to exploit. Have a rider who's only there for TTT support and then when they get sick (yeah right) after a week and the TTT is over substitute climbing support.

Ride1974 09 February 2024 at 07:17+ 316

Too easy to exploit. Teams would burn their 1st set of domestiques to trash in the 1st week, then replace them all, coming up with all sorts of "sick" ideas of why they were ill.

roadman54121 07 February 2024 at 20:43+ 420

As an example of how this could be abused - A low quality domestique takes a dive several days in and a higher quality rider subsitute steps in fresh with zero days in his legs.

markool 07 February 2024 at 24:35+ 27

Depending on the course, I could see a team starting heavy on roleurs and switching them out for team skinny guys who go uphill fast when you hit the mountains.

or maybe that's his thinking ....

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leedorney 07 February 2024 at 24:35+ 664

I don't go with that, all WT pros are highly trained and you'd not have 'fresh legs' going into a tour, in fact it'd be worse for the riders coming in, in that 1st wk as the replacement...yes theirs the chance of that happening BUT to do a start & stay in all the way it's waaay better than a substitution by far, any rider would tell you that!

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