Chris Froome wins the first post-Tour criterium in what is a lucrative week for the top pro riders.
Though he is one of the highest paid stars in the pro peloton with an annual salary said to be north of €4 million, Chris Froome took no time off after winning the Tour de France on Sunday.
The Team Sky man was back in action last night, Monday, in one of the many post-Tour criteriums held around Europe in the week after the Tour finishes.
Froome took victory in the Aalst Criterium in Belgium on Monday evening, having already jetted from Paris back to Sky’s offices in the UK for a sponsor obligation.
He took the win in Belgium from Greg Van Avermaet, the BMC Belgian rider who won a stage in the Tour and also held the yellow jersey.
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And filling 3rd place was Rafal Majka (Tinkoff), who won the king of the mountains at the Tour.
The post-Tour criteriums are a European cycling tradition stretching back decades.
The top riders who have performed at the Tour de France get very generous appearance money – up to €50,000 for the biggest names at the biggest events.
Most of the organisers get their money back, and hopefully make some profits, via sponsorship and by charging fans to enter the circuit and watch the race.
The outcome is rigged; Froome’s win last night, for example, set up to ensure the fans who paid in saw him winning and so went home happy. That’s the theory anyway.
Froome also did a lap of honour before the event last night and wore his yellow jersey during the race, with Majka wearing the polka dots; very much adding to the ceremonial feel of proceedings.
The Daags na de Tour Boxmeer Criterium was also held in Holland last night, with Dutch star of the Tour Bauke Mollema winning the event.
The Trek-Segafredo rider won ahead of Wout Poels (Team Sky) and Stef Clement (IAM Cycling); all three Dutchman who rode well at the Tour and who fans would have wanted to see going away with the spoils last night.
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And further post-Tour criteriums will follow all week, as they always do in the week after the Tour.
Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly were star turns at many of the events and would have made a not so small fortune from them, often driving very long distances from race to race to capitalise on their Tour fame in the days after the races’ 1980s and 1990s editions.
The appearance fees for each rider very much depend on the budget the race organisers have at their disposal, how big the star is they want to attract and how hard the ride bargains.
Alberto Contador (Tinkoff), for example, is said to be one of the cheaper riders to get to a post-Tour crit and that was even the case when he was appearing in the days after having won the Tour de France.
The Spaniard, it appears, saw the races as part of his professional duties and as pay back to the fans.
And was reported to have signed up to ride some of the criteriums for as little as €15,000; still nice work for riding around for little over an hour.
The organiser of the post-Tour crit in Antwerp, Roland Descheemaeker, last year revealed a little about riders’ demands.
He had tried to sign up both Froome and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) but said Sagan was looking for €32,000 and Froome was seeking between €45,000 and €50,000.
In the end the riders were too expensive so slightly less famous men were signed up, but more of them because their fee was considerably cheaper.
And in the world of European cycling, where the best rider from the host country can sometimes prove as big a draw as those who have just won classification jerseys at the Tour; plenty of races survive without the very top tier of riders in attendance.
The biggest post-Tour criterium is the Na-Tour Ninove Criterium in Belgium.
It is on this Sunday and according to local reports in recent years it has a budget of about €350,000 – that’s twice the budget of the race Froome won last night.
Sunday’s race involves a whole day of racing, with support events from 2pm before the pro race of 75km gets underway at 6.30pm.
The race action and podium presentations will all be wrapped up by 9pm, by which time copious amounts of beer will have been consumed with lots more still to come.
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