Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, who rode for Lotto-Soudal at the Tour de France this year, has said that the current WorldTour system in cycling is endangering many smaller teams’ futures.
The South African professional, who was part of Caleb Ewan’s sprint train last season, believes that the current WorldTour system is “preventing growth” in cycling, leaving some teams “fighting against everything” just to survive.
Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Janse van Rensburg said that without change cycling will see further teams collapse in the same manner as B & B Hotels-KTM did earlier this week.
“I think the system at the moment and how it’s set up is killing all the smaller teams, all the Pro Continental teams, they just don’t have a chance to shine,” he said.
“You’ve got the 18 WorldTour teams, and then the two Pro-Continental teams that are guaranteed invites to all the WorldTour races, so race organisers only have like two invites that they can send out.”
“So then if you’re a French race organiser you’ve got two French Pro-Conti teams lined up, if you’re Italian, you’ve probably then got one or two Italian teams lined up. So if you’re at Pro-Continental level, you’re kind of fighting against everything just to try and get an invite to WorldTour races, which I don’t think is really fair,” he added. “It’s limiting things for teams, and I think the system is actually preventing growth inside cycling.”
In recent days, the management of Norwegian Proteam Uno-X explained that they were watching the situation of […]
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