Olegs latest proposals

neris

olegs latest proposals to boost cycling

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couerdelion

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Oleg wrote:

Here is my statement: World cycling has to change... or die, or maybe just lurch from scandal to scandal for another decade as we watch teams come and go. That is today's situation, where teams do not have income, just huge expense that would be unthinkable in other professional sports. Teams depend on sponsorship for 99% of their revenue and this model is neither viable nor durable. This is the origin of the doping, the endless scandals and the whole 'grey tinge' of this wonderful sport. The paradox is that cycling is the world's second most popular spectator sport, after football, but at the same time it is the poorest sport.

Why is this happening? I will try to analyse the problem funnel.

This is how the chain should look ideally:
- income (from television and participation in races) for teams
- race organisers receive MORE from TV channels
- TV channels get more viewers and more demand
- races are an interesting show - this is entertainment
- a cycling star academy should be created and we should work on increasing viewing figures (see experience of Formula 1)
- ALL!!! stars should participate in these races (here we should look to the experience of Tennis)

Of course, you could look at this funnel from the bottom up. People obviously need to watch the races rather than sleeping during siesta time in Continental Europe:-).

We need to find a way to get them interested during long and boring stages. We probably need to make them shorter or start to show them later, when there is a final battle.

We need to make races more interesting and think-up new ones. As an idea: GP Monaco on Saturday before the motor racing, and sell seats in rows that are already set up. But it is important that the best sprinters come for this kind of event - the best mountain racers should go to all the grand tours. That is why I proposed the 'Three Grand Tour Challenge' which provoked such a heated discussion - which made me very happy! If you want to have a real show, you need to have the very best competing against the very best. We definitely need to reduce the number of races - noone is interested in these provincial races that get no TV coverage. Here I am talking about World Tour teams - I think that teams with lower status can participate in those more local events and so they do have a place in the sport.

Again, everything hinges on the idiotic 'ciclismo storico' . I agree with Fabian Canchelara - who needs this tradition of 'do as my grandad did'? Spain, Italy, France, Belgium are all stuck in a 20th Century paradigm - this is an anachronism in the age of the Internet, the iPhone, mass mobility and a broad-based approach to sport and life in general. In those days you really did have to ride your bike without gear changes and a lamp strapped to your forehead. We need to cut the number of races, reduce their duration and make them more viewer-friendly. For example, we could have more 'ring' races around cities, etc.

Cycling has to change. The times of Sainz, Bryneel and Riis are over - they were stuck in the 2000s and that is not necessarily about doping. They just don't get some obvious things and don't know how to manage teams in modern way. Managing a team is not just about issuing instructions from a car radio or about casting a spell over the riders at which Riis was unsurpassed, for example. Managing a team is about boring, monotonous work in the office. The day of the boring and meticulous managers has come - guys like Dave Brailsord and, I hope, our new Director Stefano Feltrin.

Directing the team and its riders from preparation today must be driven by mathematical and statistical analysis and data mining. Sport science is the king now! Today the winner is not the one that trains the most but the one who trains the right way, not the one who injects EPO, but the one with a healthy diet and the one who consumes the right drinks before, after and during lengthy training sessions.

It is for this reason that I am not considering the torrent of offers of 'Riis replacements' that I have been inundated with from all over the globe. We don't need this - this is the old way of thinking and it is no longer viable!

We have some of the best riders in the peloton, we have a superb team of trainers and specialists and, hey, cycling is a team sport - let's not forget that. So I believe in my team - Tinkoff-Saxo and in our team of like-minded professionals! We don't need a star-manager - we are a team of stars of world cycling: Stefano Feltrin, Steve de Jong, Sean Yates, Bobby Julich, Daniel Healey, etc. and together we will make our team into a Super-Team.

But of course if cycling itself doesn't change as I wrote above, then it will be that more difficult. And everything will stay the same as it is now - each man for himself fighting to save his own skin. I call out to all teams to unite to establish new rules of the game, to influence the UCI and race organisers. I realize that this is difficult task, and there needs to be more team-owners rather than former sportsmen who managed to find sponsors and survive, earning their million-a-year.

I believe in my favorite sport and I believe in the dialectic of life too....

Junior

Translates as - I have spent lots of money on this **** team and they aren't winning I want to change the rules to suit me.

MPFG

Lance Armstrong likes it...see Oleg's twitter timeline responses

Tinkov doesn't really agree to a mutual silence over split with Riis...gets a good few digs in

https://twitter.com/olegtinkov/status/582877929874550784

Mefistofelino

A strop, a bullsh!t bingo "full house" and rampant revisionism - that proposal has everything.

I wonder if Bertie and Sagan reckon it was such a good career move after all?

velo.2010

Mefistofelino wrote: »

I wonder if Bertie and Sagan reckon it was such a good career move after all?

Bertie joined Saxobank to work with Riis before Tinkoff got involved. Sagan couldn't turn down the money.

I wonder, would Contador hire Riis personally for the next few months? I don't think it would look too good but Contador will feel like he has had the rug pulled from underneath him right now.

manwithaplan

I want to know more about the 'dialectic of life'. I presume there will be a thesis (I've loads of money and can't understand why you won't just do as I say) an antithesis (you can't just come in here waving your roubles and expect us to throw a century of tradition in the bin) and a synthesis (let's see if the headcase will give us even more money and we'll give him a cycling version of 20/20 cricket crossed with premier league darts).

not sane

Some very valid points made. I know for one the Grand Tours are becoming increasingly boring except for maybe the last 20k of each stage.

MPFG

not sane wrote: »

Some very valid points made. I know for one the Grand Tours are becoming increasingly boring except for maybe the last 20k of each stage.

But what Tinkov is proposing would not lessen that ...if anything it would increase it ...Top teams all controlling the racing??

TV coverage of stages can be made better and more interactive and more polished and entertaining without the few top teams model

BGT

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein.

It is important to consider the message, not the messenger. There is plenty in OT's message we will disagree with, but he should not be faulted for forcing all of us who love this sport to consider what is best for its future.

The power in cycling appears to be with a few race organisers, and not the governing body, and change will not come unless this dynamic can be changed.

Hermy

...That is today's situation, where teams do not have income, just huge expense that would be unthinkable in other professional sports. Teams depend on sponsorship for 99% of their revenue and this model is neither viable nor durable. This is the origin of the doping, the endless scandals and the whole 'grey tinge' of this wonderful sport...

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but is he saying that the lack of money is the cause of the doping and that more money would mean less doping???

wirelessdude01

Hermy wrote: »

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but is he saying that the lack of money is the cause of the doping and that more money would mean less doping???

My reading of that comment is that the successful teams get the big sponsorships that are available and that this lead(s) to people doing what they did/do inorder to be successful.

Also doesn't some sponsorship follow the riders and also the more successful the individual rider the more personal deals they can do.

Brian?

The man rarely makes sense, but he has some decent points there. Particularly about performance management.

pelevin

Junior wrote: »

Translates as - I have spent lots of money on this **** team and they aren't winning I want to change the rules to suit me.

In fairness he was talking about these kind of changes late last year when his team were after a super year.

MPFG

Brian? wrote: »

The man rarely makes sense, but he has some decent points there. Particularly about performance management.

There is nothing new in what Tinkov says about performance ...David Brailsford is already doing this with SKY and it shows ...Suddenly Tinkov is an expert ...last year Riis was the best DS in the world ever and this year he is stuck in 2000.... Really ??

Tinkov wants cycling to be an entertainment based on his views where best riders ride 3 reduced GTs and city crits but long standing races are demoted to lesser teams?? But Tinkov is a fly by night self interested figure ..if he really cared for the sport he would have an appreciation and understanding of its history and legacy. He wants 10 SKYs ??

Its amassing how some of the popular cycling websites are praising him...He is obviously the kind of guy who can take others ideas and make them his own ...which is fine...but he never last long in anything he does ....

I will listen to Tinkov when he has produced a top clean team ....

Junior

Do whatever you want just don't get caught. I wonder who said that to his riders last time he had a team, that's right Oleg wasn't it.

Like most team owners he speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

jimm

What date is today?

http://www.thebikecomesfirst.com/oleg-tinkov-announces-lance-armstrong-as-his-new-general-manager/

mcgratheoin

MPFG wrote: »

Tinkov wants cycling to be an entertainment based on his views where best riders ride 3 reduced GTs and city crits but long standing races are demoted to lesser teams??

To be fair, he has a point here. Athletics has the same issue where the top guys can avoid each other all season, one of them will run a 200 on Friday night and someone else will run the 100 while a third will run on Saturday somewhere else. If the UCI wants to grow the revenues within the sport (which seems necessary to remove the need for sugar-daddy owners), then there probably has to be some sort of rethink on how many top tier events there should be - yes there's a strong history and tradition to a huge number of events within sport, but essentially the Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico and Volta a Catalunya (as early season examples) are competing against each other for sponsors, teams and viewers with the Milan San-Remo and the early Flanders classics elbowing their way in as well. Just because the highly distasteful Oleg is the one raising this issue doesn't mean that it's irrelevant. When you watch a major event in any other sport you don't have to ask which athletes are present and which are skipping this one and focusing on a different event. It's something that I think should be discussed and not just dismissed out of hand.

As an aside, I've long thought that motor racing circuits would be ideal venues for prologues and time trials - imagine a TdF time trial through the Nurburgring as an example - and his Monaco idea is definitely an interesting one (not sure if it would work logistically within the F1 time constraints, but that's another issue)

desertcircus

Racing in Monaco the day before the GP would be pretty thrilling stuff, alright, but mainly because the riders would have to negotiate the likes of Hamilton and Vettel pushing for pole position in qualifying at the same time...

MPFG

I don't decry the raised issues over races because 'its the highly distasteful Oleg' raising' it

You can have top riders ride 4 race a year against each other without delegating long standing races...Just make an issue in the yearly licence for GC and classic riders ...but can bring a horse to water but ....

Anyway the top were to ride against each other at T/A & Volta Catalunya and look how that turned out ...We are asking too much of top riders to win multiple races now (without illict substances as before) so they need to be in tip top shape and are thus prone to illnesses...If we want the them to ride 3 GTs it won't work...Niabli is not going to turn up for instance & Contador won't be able and Froome will get sick in trying to maintain weight

we have to remember at present that athletes are on the verge of illness all the time that they are required to be on top form . I sometimes we forget that these are people and not machines ...Certainly Oleg thinks this and alot of cycling fans now have become like people watching gladiators....only waking up if it is brutal or there are terrible crashes or its in terrible weather ....

I find city Crits boring and I love cycling and wouldn't tune in...I would also find 3 GTS with same riders to the fore boring ..Same attacks by the same riders at the same points ....I like that its not all so certain....I like that different guys ride to win and I think some of the best races are without the top 4 in attendance

I want to improve the funding, teams have a share of the profits, improve TV coverage ,
Cycling is not like football , tennis or even athletics because it is more grueling

And least I forget ...I don't want 10 SKY teams all just controlling everything....The beauty of cycling is its unpredictability

mcgratheoin

MPFG wrote: »

Anyway the top were to ride against each other at T/A & Volta Catalunya and look how that turned out ...We are asking too much of top riders to win multiple races now (without illict substances as before) so they need to be in tip top shape and are thus prone to illnesses...If we want the them to ride 3 GTs it won't work...Niabli is not going to turn up for instance & Contador won't be able and Froome will get sick in trying to maintain weight

We have to remember at present that athletes are on the verge of illness all the time that they are required to be on top form . I sometimes we forget that these are people and not machines ...Certainly Oleg thinks this and alot of cycling fans now have become like people watching gladiators....only waking up if it is brutal or there are terrible crashes or its in terrible weather ....

Completely agree, my tuppence worth is that I think that the tours are probably a bit too long tbh and I'd rather see a week of classics stages back to back rather than 3 weeks of the GC contenders sitting on the wheel of their super-domestique. Maybe have shorter tours with harder stages?

find city Crits boring and I love cycling and wouldn't tune in...I would also find 3 GTS with same riders to the fore boring ..Same attacks by the same riders at the same points ....I like that its not all so certain....I like that different guys ride to win and I think some of the best races are without the top 4 in attendance

Yeah, that can be true, but i also find long days where a break is just left dangle out there boring and any days where the GC contenders don't attack each other can be pretty mind-numbing as well. Maybe what we need are more incentives (somehow) to be like Garmin were a few years ago and genuinely try to blow the race open rather than protecting your GC rider's 12th position.

Cycling is not like football , tennis or even athletics because it is more grueling

I'm not saying that everybody should do every event, my point is that at the supposed top level of the sport there are too many events and there is no semblance of agreement over which are the biggest/best/brightest. Cycling is no more gruelling than running a marathon, yet there are accepted marathons which are bigger events and attract better fields - you have the majors of marathon running with half a million dollars for the best performer. Tokyo, London, Boston, Berlin, Chicago & New York - run over 2 years.
Yes there's a huge tradition behind a lot of the cycling events, but at the same time, something like La Fleche Wallonne is carrying a huge handicap by running midweek - the vast majority of its potential audience is at work and will completely miss out on it, but it was shoehorned into its slot to sell newspapers in the 30s and nobody wants to change it now.

And least I forget ...I don't want 10 SKY teams all just controlling everything....

Yeah, I think this is a problem as well. How would you feel about slashing team sizes? Look at SKY controlling the Olympic warm-up for Cav versus team GB's inability to control the Olympics with fewer riders - It might also help to rein in team spending and increase the quality of riders at smaller events.

MPFG

But alot of what I don't want is what Oleg is proposing ... Best riders riding all GTs to win

It is possible as you say to make stages and the coverage of stages more exciting ..that is a good objective to start with
Garmin did what they did because they had nothing to lose...With Tinkoff's model of a top tier of teams not possible in my book
Could keep 3 weeks and have more rest days....Have some shorter harder stages and do more to liven up long stages and sprint stages which are also necessary....
And better TV coverage during the longer stages not just Carloton Kiby rabbiting on about wild boar hunting....
Previews , DS strategy planning, more viewer interaction, better data & graphics, more & better interviews from entertaining pundits ( Eamon Dunphy types)

But not to throw the baby out with the bath water !!!
5 marathons a year is still less than 100 days of cycling in top form which would be needed to do 3 GTs and 2 stage races a year (in prep) ...more if you wanted also like Dan Martin or Valverde to win the classics & the Worlds
Then there is national championships which would suffer
And if you are a strong classics rider like say Geraint Thomas ...you won't be intop form for 3 GTs even as a support rider...(support riders will also be under immense pressure and not able to ever ride for themselves )

So yes lets make cycling more entertaining for TV audiences without making it too grueling for the athletes and too predictable for the fans

Maybe best team at T/A , Dauphine, Tour and one other stage race (move one of the other spring races to September ?) Maybe move vulelta & worlds out a week ??
Also points fro winning monuments and a few classics ....then have a best team prize that works

MPFG

Oh and here's a thought ..How's about showing a womens race during the long earlier part of stage of the mens race

Brian?

MPFG wrote: »

There is nothing new in what Tinkov says about performance ...David Brailsford is already doing this with SKY and it shows ...Suddenly Tinkov is an expert ...last year Riis was the best DS in the world ever and this year he is stuck in 2000.... Really ??

Tinkov wants cycling to be an entertainment based on his views where best riders ride 3 reduced GTs and city crits but long standing races are demoted to lesser teams?? But Tinkov is a fly by night self interested figure ..if he really cared for the sport he would have an appreciation and understanding of its history and legacy. He wants 10 SKYs ??

Its amassing how some of the popular cycling websites are praising him...He is obviously the kind of guy who can take others ideas and make them his own ...which is fine...but he never last long in anything he does ....

I will listen to Tinkov when he has produced a top clean team ....

Well I thought it was a rather refreshing view point in parts. He's normally such a knob jockey.

Raam

mcgratheoin wrote: »

As an aside, I've long thought that motor racing circuits would be ideal venues for prologues and time trials - imagine a TdF time trial through the Nurburgring as an example

I did a 24hr race there as part of a team. Tough route!