ASO, the promoters of the Tour de France and numerous other races, are below renewed scrutiny after it became confirmed on Thursday that they may be pulling off their marquee one-day races, Flèche-Wallone and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, out of Women’s World Tour in 2020 because they may no longer offer the desired forty-five mins of live TV coverage from the two activities.
The Women’s World Tour began in 2017, and each year has seen a boom in the necessities for race organizers to keep their WWT fame.
However, the president of the UCI’s Road Commission, Tom Van Damme, told DirectVelo the day passed: “One of the conditions for being in the Women’s World is the guarantee of stay television insurance of at least forty-five mins, and ASO and the Walloon public RTBF are not able to provide this service subsequent season.”
ASO, who uses some distance the biggest and richest promoters in the sport, has often been criticized for their 1/2-hearted technique to promote ladies’ biking. La Course using Le Tour, the girls’ race that takes place each summer season on the Tour de France, celebrated its 5th edition ovrin 12 months. But despite calls every year to grow the length of the race, it stays a one-day format.
UCI president David Lappartient declared himself unimpressed after the direction announcement last autumn. “I suppose in the future isn’t enough,” he informed The Daily Telegraph. “I started this final year after the presentation of the Tour de France. I met with the Tour de France to speak about this issue. I advised them, ‘You’re the main organization in the global, so you ought to take your part of the obligation to support ladies’ cycling.”
Meanwhile, Italian Valerio Conti [UAE Team Emirates] took the overall lead on the Giro d’Italia the day before this after completing 2d to compatriot Fausto Masnada [Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec] inside the 6th stage from Cassino to San Giovanni Rotondo.
Conti, who is not considered a threat in the long term, leads by way of 1min41sec. Overnight leader Primoz Roglic [Jumbo-Visma] dropped to eleventh, while Britain’s Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) is now 13th at 5 minutes and 59 seconds.
