Monday, February 18, 2013
"What a Mess", Giro Can't Support Another Team
With the Court of Arbitration for Sport upholding Team Katusha's appeal of the UCI's decision not to issue the Russian team a WorldTour licence the problem facing the UCI is that they had already selected the 18 UCI WorldTour teams (18 is the maximum according to their regulations).
The CAS ruling, this past Friday, comes after RCS Sports had already made the team invititations to the Giro d'Italia and Tirreno-Adriatico.
Of the situation Aquarone, Managing, Director at RCS Sport, says, "What a mess. Now we have 19 teams so I’m curious to see what’s going to happen. We’ve planned everything for 18 teams and then the wildcard teams. We’re not ready for 19 WorldTour teams. Logistically everything has been set up for races like Tirreno and the Giro. I really don’t know how we’d have one more team in the race. I’m curious to see what the UCI are going to do. Maybe they’ll take one team out of the WorldTour because as it stands we’ve got an agreement for 18 teams, not 19. I just don’t know. At the moment I think we have to go back to 18 teams but I will speak to the UCI this week and help to work on finding a solution.”
The only statement thusfar from the UCI, on Friday, was, "The UCI will now evaluate the consequences of this ruling and will communicate further in coming days, as soon as such evaluation has taken place."
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With a challenge before the courts, why were all of the teams chosen? Or, why didn't the courts react quicker to allow for necessary planning of the race. Either way, I am so excited that I should be at one or more stages this year of the Giro!
ReplyDeleteThe UCI made the announcement of the 18 teams first, the exclusion of Katusha shocked everyone. Katusha then filed an appeal and the ruling in their favor was just made Friday. In the meantime, the early season races had to have the invitations issued because teams need to know their programs for many reasons.
ReplyDeleteWatching the Giro can bring many emotions. Hope you enjoy it. Write in with a story about your experience :-)