#tbt – Race to the Sun (March 2008)

Despite the existence of a variety of long-standing early season races, not to mention the recent addition to the cycling calendar of a multitude of over-hyped training stage races in non-European countries, the pro cycling season doesn’t really start until the Paris-Nice. It was the race that the Pro Tour chose to open their competition, and it has become the race that will decide the outcome of a huge power struggle within pro cycling.

And that’s because the race means much more to cycling than it appears. The Race to the Sun takes its nickname from the weather conditions that influence the racing that takes place. Usually starting in the cold, often frosty, Ile-de-France or Centre regions, the race heads south-east to the warmer weather of Nice. As a symbolic statement, it is analogous with pro cycling emerging from its winter break and the sport beginning again. It’s the perfect season opener.

All of which makes the UCI’s decision to take the political stance of christening the Tour Down Under as the start of the season seem even stranger: It’s like going into an inferno armed with a supersoaker.

The UCI, having proven themselves incapable of running the sport in Europe, are adamant about pushing cycling to emerging markets, where they can presumably mismanage the sport on an international scale. But expansion of the sport into a global market isn’t just about making the sport more popular, or even more profitable. It’s hard, after all, to argue a case for globalisation when you’ve successfully perpetuated and profited from cartel ownership of a microcosmic industry for over a century. Instead, the aim is the development of a worldwide franchise, opening the doors to the same global levels of corruption that make football so profitable for an elite minority. Cycling is trying to sell its own soul, allowing the sport to be pillaged in exchange for the reciprocal boost in cultural influence it gains.

Notably, the ASO seem to be working in some way towards the same goal themselves. Seen through this lens, conflict was inevitable, and this year’s Paris-Nice became the key site for a dramatic power struggle between race organiser and governing body.

The cycling teams were left with a difficult decision to make. Who did they hate the least: The event organisers who wanted the power to pick and choose who could ride their races, and who had already demonstrated that they could destroy a team the previous year during the Unibet saga; or the UCI, who had no races to offer, no specific plan for the future, and who had spent the previous three years alternating between outright persecution of its riders and incompetence in managing their interests? They chose the ASO.

The winning party was the most conservative of the pair, so, for now, cycling can carry on largely as it has done. The season begins again with the Race to the Sun.