by Zach Bigalke

Created on: March 28, 2008   Last Updated: April 01, 2008

There has been a long-standing rift between the various factions which control professional cycling. The Union Cycliste International (UCI) is the nominal governing body of professional cycling. Each race is controlled by various race organizations - Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) is the organizer of the Tour de France, Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix and other races throughout France and Belgium; Unipublic runs the Vuelta a Espana and other races throughout Spain; and RCS operates the Giro d'Italia, Milan-San Remo, and other Italian races. Teams are loosely unified in their own association. Riders have several organizations supposedly looking out for their interests...

The sport has had a long history of fighting doping. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was created in the aftermath of the 1998 Festina scandal at that year's Tour de France to oversee doping controls in internationally-sanctioned sports. National Olympic committees, national cycling federations and national anti-doping agencies also exert their influences on the sport at all levels. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Lausanne, acts as a Supreme Court for appeals cases in matters of disputed doping accusations and the like...

Professional cycling has a storied history, but these disparate controlling interests are tearing the sport asunder. Too many groups have a hand in the sport, and those hands all have different reasons for being there. There is no one unified goal, no mission toward which these various factions are all aiming. The concept of the ProTour, brought to fruition as former UCI president Hein Verbruggen was leaving his post, was pure in intent. Sponsors have been treating the sport as a revolving-door marketing agency, giving large sums of money when it benefitted them and retracting those funds when there was no further advertising benefit. Races were independent entities, as were teams. The goal was to have one calendar which was raced by the best of the elite cyclists, and to determine the best cyclist through results at these races.

But not everyone is supportive of this goal. Each side has its intentions, its money to be made - and the former ProTour model gave too little credit to the draw of the races and the vast sums which they generate. What is needed is a revolutionary new system, a power-sharing structure that gives incentive to ALL parties to play along. Perhaps the two greatest professional sports league models at which we can look were created in two very

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