News
Sheikh rolls out big bucks road race; UCI rattled by GTs
Carlton Reid Jan 11 2007, 10:00am
If the Tour of Qatar has shown that camels, sand and pro-cyclists can mix, the stakes have now been raised by the United Arab Emirates which is to stage a $1m 'Cycling Race of Champions' for each of the next five years. The event kicks off in November and it's claimed will feature the winners of the Tour de France, Spain's La Vuelta, and Italy's Giro d'Italia. PLUS: in a display of uncustomary and ironic weakness, the UCI has cried foul to the European Commission over the "cartel" said to be operated by the organisers of the three Grand Tours.
Abu Dhabi is the capital of the Arabian Gulf state of the United Arab Emirates.
His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan said: "The Race of Champions is a significant events coup for Abu Dhabi."
The big bucks event is an initiative of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and is a three-stage 204 km race featuring two flat city centre stages and a mountain stage up 1200-metre Jebel Hafeet, the emirate's highest point.
The Abu Dhabi Cycling Race of Champions will be staged annually in the UAE capital for the next five years.
As well as the individual winners of Europe's Grand Tours cycling events, and their teams, there will be invites for a team from the UAE, and four wildcard entrants selected closer to the event.
The co-organiser of the event is Unipublic, organiser of the Vuelta.
Tarek S El-Kays, CEO of Abu Dhabi-based Kenzay, which is organising the Abu Dhabi Cycling Race of Champions alongside Unipublic, said the event will quickly move up the international cycling agenda.
"While the Tour de France, La Vuelta and Giro d'Italia may be more high-profile, the Abu Dhabi Cycling Race of Champions will rapidly evolve into the established glamour event on the global cycling calendar, bringing together the world's best for a one-off race of the sport's greatest names."
Unipublic commercial manager Jorge de Sebastian Perez-Manglano said:
"We anticipate six hours of live or delayed broadcast being taken up on a Pan-European basis, with heavy take-up in Germany, Italy, Spain and France, some of Abu Dhabi's key tourism target markets."
The Gulf States have latched on to cycling not just as a spectacle but as a means of getting around. The pro-cyclists will have to contend with November heat but urban cyclists in Qatar could soon benefit from covered, air-conditioned cycle-paths, as previewed in this YouTube short.
Over at the airy ivory towers at the UCI HQ in Switzerland, things are not going well. The organisation has decided to up the ante in its long-standing battle with the organisers of the Grand Tours and has lodged a formal complaint to the European Commission concerning their "anti-competitive conduct."
The UCI claims the organisers of the world's biggest and best bike races have "acted as a cartel in order to protect their own dominant position in the field of professional road cycling."
They have "deliberately tried to undermine the development of the UCI ProTour," the UCI series that has been trying to tell the organisers of the Grand Tours what to do, a battle the UCI could never really hope to win."This conduct is detrimental to the interest of teams, riders and the wider development of cycling in Europe and in the world as a whole," complained the UCI.
"The UCI has repeatedly tried to engage the organizers of the Grands Tours in a constructive dialogue; however they have refused to cooperate in any meaningful way leaving the UCI with no alternative other than to seek intervention by the European Commission."
