Tour de France to admit moped riders?

From news.yahoo.com

World cycling boss slams colluding ASO and French sports ministry

1 day ago

PARIS (AFP) — World cycling chief Pat McQuaid on Friday stoked the feud with race organisers Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO), accusing them of colluding to form a private league with the backing of the French sports ministry.

International Cycling Union (UCI) president McQuaid made his accusations in a column in French daily Le Monde just two days before the start of the Paris-Nice stage race.

In a stunning counter play, the Tour de France, fearing being dropped as a race by the warring factions decided to admit low power Moped riders into the race.

NewsBiscuit

‘This is outrageous’ claimed French sports minister Jean-Pierre Bertillon ‘This destroys the whole concept of the human endurance that makes our race the greatest in the world. American fast food and motor vehicles have no place in this event.’

Looks like it will be quite a shake up. :w:

(fixed link)



[edit on 10-3-2008 by Jbird]

The riders have been juiced for years. Why not the bikes? :w:

Well Paris-Nice is being run right now on OLN/Versus. Looks like a majority of teams are going ahead.

You might notice a lot of the riders are riding TT bikes. That's because this is the prologue Individual Time Trial. This sorts out the riders before the big race.

BTW, uh read the NewsBiscuit site carefully.

Just in case you missed it, OLN is having the Paris-Nice race stage 5 next Saturday make that Sunday.

One of the less-known riders won the Prologue which was held last week. (hmm, might be OLN/Versus is running these on Sunday, not Saturday, so check local listings around 3-5pm EDT).

OK, it is Sundays:

The Cyclysm on Versus

Interestingly a bunch of the teams defied the orders of the UCI - so they may get fined.

We'll have to see if they make good on their threat.




(PS hint: Newsbisuit is like 'the onion'. They do funny fake news stories that look like real news. Don't forget to laugh and tell your friends. No Pizza mopeds will be running in TdF after all. Yuck, yuck)