2016 TdF, Stage 15: Bourg-en-Bresse → Culoz (160km)

PeadarCo

pelevin wrote:

I'm talking about a sport like soccer or rugby with the idea of the players miked up to their coaches. That's a self-evidently aberrant thought imo - the sportsmen as mere robots executing their coach's thoughts. I wasn't however really referring to its use in cycling though, just showing the idea of optimising efficiency using technological methods isn't necessarily the highest ideal in sport.

My question would be where do you draw the line. Ban speedo's, heart rate monitor's, 11 speed group sets etc. Banning all those would impact racing to greater or lesser degree.

The issue I have is normally its a case that after a certain amount of time (normally when the technology becomes easily affordable to the average joe) stuff is accepted and people move on to complaining about the next new technological innovation.

terrydel

Beasty wrote: »

I don't think banning anything (that's not already banned!) will improve things. The point is (and this applies to all sports), things improve over time. The benefits Sky get from use of PMs will be replicated elsewhere. Team tactics will also improve by the information relayed by race radio.

If you take all that away what's to stop teams placing people at various places along the stage relaying the same sort of info. You could even get to the stage of messages in/on a bottle/bidon! The more you try and outlaw stuff the more innovative teams become. That's already happening in F1. My view is you just have to accept it and await the next innovation which may shift the balance of power.

Ultimately Sky's dominance is actually down to one factor. They have the best rider in the race.

Formula 1 isnt a sport.

Eamonnator

Beasty wrote: »

Ultimately Sky's dominance is actually down to one factor. They have the best rider in the race.

And quite possibly the second best rider in the race!

Caught the highlights earlier and missed why Chris Boardman wasn't there so googled , terrible sad to hear that his mother was killed

pelevin

Beasty wrote: »

Ultimately Sky's dominance is actually down to one factor. They have the best rider in the race.

Froome is clearly the strongest rider & if Sky didn't have him their tactics would be pointless. However their dominance & ability to more or less completely determine & suffocate the racing until the very death in support of him is about much more than having Froome. He's never the one at the front till/if he attacks so that's clear enough. I could enjoy watching Froome winning if the racing was very different but assuming I'm not simply a lone person, watching this kind of racing actually depresses rather than elates me. It's just suffocating to the spirit & it's an unenviable position for the organisers to have to deal with the fact that for very many, enthusiasm for the Tour dies a lot.
Poels, Nieve, Henao, Geraint Thomas, Mikel Landa - nearly all good enough to be team leaders elsewhere, riding to keep the racing shut down, that it's near impossible & fruitless to attack . . . That's depressing. And then when something different like Aru's Astana have the audacity to come to the front to try to break the stranglehold & set up something however forlorn the hope, Froome is demanding of Aru what does he think he's doing. Not very lovable all in all.

NeedMoreGears

I think what we're seeing in cycling reflects what's happening in other professional sports. Plenty of money behind a few teams leads to dominance. Pro soccer has gone that way ; it doesn't always work of course - Leicester being the most recent example. Toulon are having some success with this approach in rugby. Add to that fantastic talent - to be fair Froome is a very fine cyclist - and you have recipe for boredom. Think Williams in women's tennis, Schumacher in FI, Merckx when he was winning everything in sight. It's probably even worse in cycling because those who might otherwise be serious contenders find themselves as domestiques so they are out of the competition before the race starts.

Pro sports people are in the entertainment business and to be entertaining there has to be some degree of uncertainty as to the outcome or at least some heroic failure or other. Unfortunately there hasn't been much of either in the last few tours and it's hard to get excited about the race for second.

I wonder would some form of salary cap level things out a bit.

odyssey06

NeedMoreGears wrote: »

I wonder would some form of salary cap level things out a bit.

That thought had occurred to me also, but I'm not sure.

Salary caps and draft system work very well in American football.
But draft system only works for a single country, wouldn't work for a multi-national global sport.
I don't think there's enough money in the cycling system to have the luxury of salary caps... cycling needs outside money, soccer and american football does not. Soccer's response to the trend you have identified is financial fair play.

Beasty

Regulating salaries never works. It's also illegal within the EU (even if the likes of Rugby League is currently getting away with it). Even if you got a concession within the EU you can never police anything like that globally

Chuchote

Le Nouvel Observateur has some nice pictures: http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/galeries-photos/photo/20160704.OBS3926/au-c-ur-du-tour-de-france-2016-notre-selection-photo.html