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news
Pat McQuaid at the Tour Down Under (photo credit credit Santos Tour Down Under : John Veage).jpgPat McQuaid proposes new levels of team staff & qualifications to protect riders
As part of his campaign to be re-elected president of the UCI, Pat McQuaid has proposed new team structures and qualifications for team support workers.
Staff members such as doctors, coaches and sports directors will have to have suitable qualifications and McQuaid proposes a skills certification system for these staff members. In addition teams will have to have one doctor, coach and sport director per seven riders.
McQuaid says the idea is to provide better support for the riders, though it might involve smaller squads. This would move teams away from the "historic model that left riders without adequate mentoring, support and supervision" he said.
“This will enhance the level of monitoring care and support available to each rider, thereby helping riders to better manage their workload, race schedule and recovery,” said McQuaid in a statement.
“Individualised training and sustainable race load programmes up to a maximum of 80 days racing are also required.
“Teams must be capable of providing analytical, scientific and innovative training solutions for their riders that are based on performance monitoring, especially power metering.”
McQuaid acknowledged that the UCI must also introduce a sustainable and long lasting economic model to assist teams in implementing the initiatives that he is proposing.
“This may well require the UCI to reduce the size of teams at UCI World Tour level and UCI Continental level by five or more riders respectively,” he said.
These changes would place riders at the centre of a team’s organisation and activities, rather than leaving them to their own devices.
“Today’s riders should never be faced with having to make the same choices as previous generations,” said McQuaid.
“Today’s teams and those of the future must be built upon a model where riders are placed at the centre of the organisation where their performance is monitored and underpinned through collaboration with a multi-disciplinary scientific team.”
Some teams are already at the staffing levels proposed by McQuaid. Team Sky, for example, has four team doctors, coaches and sport directors for a 27-man team. But others will have to recruit new personnel and may have to choose between riders and support staff.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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14 comments
Argh Pat you are so infuriating!
Its like a fly that frantically buzzes it's death throes after you've sprayed it.
there is some merit in the line of thought.....
....just need someone else to implement something workable
Smacks a little of needing to be seen to be doing something, close to an election.
This just doesn't seem an enticing idea at all and I'm not sure the benefits are clear beyond the UCI creating it own (costly) set of training courses for team members to pay for. Not really a great campaign policy.
Good luck Pat. You know how we are rooting for you.
With the ProTour teams having to field teams for all WT races - no excuses - as well as the important and targeted non-WT races - and with less riders and capped race days....this should be a doddle.
Oh, hang on....
The European Cycling Union are meeting this weekend, to listen to BC and Fat Pat make their respective pitches.
I predict a ruuuuuuuummmmmmmble...
Hooray. A fresh photo of Pat after all these years. I've lost all respect for Pat though. No. Not the usual reasons but a shirt with a 'UCI' embroidered badge on it? Nothing sadder than that.
I wonder if Pat has consulted with the riders and teams this would affect.. it just sounds like one of many initiatives/schemes thought up by our wonderful politicians that is then heavily criticized for terrible ideas, by those it's aimed at helping.
I also question how the lesser riders that would be facing the prospect of being sacked to accommodate Pat's rider protection, aren't having those "choices" thrust at them, if those choices may help them keep their place in the team.
He's certainly getting plenty of column inches, or the digital equivalent.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde; "The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about".
If only he'd been as keen on exposing doping and corruption as he is on saving his arse.
It's like the last few days before McQuids competency review meeting . . .
I hope BC is ready to challenge McQuaid in the same way he was challenged at the start of his campaign. How Pat? Where is the money coming from Pat? How do the small teams survive in this brave new world Pat?
Women's teams have enough trouble with funding already - sounds like this could make it worse..
So, who would administer and manage this registration?
Oh, UCI, that's OK then, no problem with vested interests and corrupt politicians there.
And it costs HOW much?