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Cycling copies Football/Soccer

by Gerard Vroomen

July 07, 2011 - Filed under: Company

Comments (1)

Cycling often looks at soccer with envy. The teams are rich, the federation is rich, doping scandals disappear before they get any traction and 7-figure donations are made from the federation to WADA instead of 5-figure donations from the athlete to the federation. So it’s disappointing that what cycling seems to be copying from football right now is the one thing we all detest: incomprehensible refereeing.

First we saw stage 1 time losses still being adjusted 3 days later. Then there was the Cavendish-Hushovd intermediate sprint, now there is the Rojas-Boonen sprint. Not only the calls themselves raise questions, the timing makes it all even worse. If you have an intermediate sprint at 2pm, can you really not review the tape and make a decision before you have the jersey ceremony at 6pm? How long does a video review take during an (ice) hockey or (American) football game? 30 seconds?

Any fan with a Twitter account and a Youtube connection can make these calls more efficiently (if they were calls to be made to begin with) than is currently happening. That said, if it takes five hours to review a video, we shouldn’t be surprised it takes 12 months to review a doping case.

1 response for this Entry

Ernie says:

July 08, 2011

Agreed Gerard. As an ex UCI commissaire, I am astounded at the apparent inability of the Tour officials to make rapid and appropriate decisions. BTW, they also have a responsibility to pre-examine the stage routes and require the organisers to eliminate or modify dangerous sections or locations. They also need to employ the use of m/c outriders to get the over-eager fans to back off a foot or two.