With the coronavirus still worsening at a significant rate and not having peaked yet in even one European country, professional cycling is already looking towards a restructuring of the season.
What seems very clear is that the rate of confirmed cases
of the virus, and deaths, will continue to grow in Europe.
Whether the ever-increasing level might begin to slow or
decline in coming days remains to be seen.
But even if that were the case, it is likely the
precautions needed to control the virus will remain in place for months.
If rates don’t peak in some European countries soon,
cycling and other sports will, rightly, remain way down the pecking order for
Europe and indeed the rest of the world.
However, UCI president David Lappartient has been speaking about how the season may look in the months to come if conditions arise allowing for racing to begin again.
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Lappartient has denied reports in the Netherlands suggesting the Giro d’Italia may be held wholly in Italy in May; with the intended first stages in Hungary scrapped.
That plan would seem ambitious in the extreme considering
Italy is so badly hit by the virus. However, Lappartient has said in any
restructuring of the season the Grand Tours will be given priority.
And he has also clearly stated the cancelled spring
classics could all be held at the end of an extended season, which would
involve the 2020 campaign stretching into late October or early November.
He also suggested the Giro would run in the autumn if it was rescheduled, adding the rules may be relaxed to allow more WorldTour races overlap.
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“In the coming days and weeks we’ll be working on remodeling the calendar; taking account of how the epidemic evolves of course,” he said in a French TV sports interview.
“The first possibility is to reschedule the monuments for
the autumn. To do that we can push the end of the season back by two weeks;
until October 31st.”
That would mean races like Paris-Roubaix, Milan-Sanremo,
Tour of Flanders, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Tour of Lombardy all possibly being held
after a late Giro or some of them even overlapping with a rescheduled Giro.
While the
decision-making has not yet taken shape, it is likely the UCI and RCS Sport
will badly want to run the Giro considering what Italy is going through at present
due to Covid19.
“In the meantime, we will also be looking at how to move
the dates of certain races in order to make room for everyone,” Lappartient
said.
“At this stage no decision has been made regarding the
reallocation of dates and the format of the events concerned,” he added of the
Grand Tours.
That appeared to leave the door open to the idea of a
shortened Giro, as has been mooted in some reports.
However, Lappartient’s theories are based on his assumption that the Tour de France will not need to be postponed; something that remains to be seen.
Furthermore, if the Olympic Games were postponed to next
year that would create extra time in pro cycling’s calendar to rescheduled
missed events.
But if the Game were postponed to the autumn, it would make
rescheduling cancelled races much more difficult.
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