Inside Cycling: ASO’s renegade Paris-Nice threatens pro cycling’s future
By John Wilcockson
Mar. 2, 2008

As the most profitable race promoter in pro cycling, Amaury Sport Organisation wants to dictate how the sport is run. That’s why for the past three years ASO and its surrogates have resisted substantive changes in cycling, particularly those changes involving the elite-level ProTour, which all other parties have embraced.

ASO’s insurgency has now come to a head in its bid to independently promote next week’s Paris-Nice. And it appears that this time it has made one step too many. The Paris-based ASO — part of Groupe Amaury, a media empire that publishes the most profitable French newspapers, including sports daily L’Équipe — has expanded considerably in recent years.

Until the early-1990s, the company’s core properties were the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and Paris-Tours, along with smaller French races like the Critérium International, Tour de l’Oise (now called the Tour de Picardie) and Tour de l’Avenir. ASO has since taken over several major events, including the Belgian classics Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Fleche Wallonne, and the weeklong Paris-Nice stage race, which ASO bought at a fire-sale price from interim owner Laurent Fignon in 2002.

In order to promote the 2008 Paris-Nice as an independent race ASO bosses Patrice Clerc and Christian Prudhomme metaphorically twisted the arm of Jean Pitallier, the president of the French cycling federation, to obtain a domestic race sanction for the March 9-17 race.

VeloNews
complete article

ASO is also preventing last year's Tour winner Contador from competing at all...

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Honestly, the whole thing has become so farcical now, what with all the doping scandals and political maneuvering, that the hooplah has become about five times more interesting than the sport itself...

JabbaPapa wrote:

ASO is also preventing last year's Tour winner Contador from competing at all... --- Honestly, the whole thing has become so farcical now, what with all the doping scandals and political maneuvering, that the hooplah has become about five times more interesting than the sport itself...

And Levi (he was third), ya ASO sucks MHO, while it is a money and power grab by the ASO, you realize there hasn't been a french winner of the TdF since Hinnault in 86 (or was it 85, I dont remember when Lemond won his first was either 85 or 86), so I also see this as 'the french have done there best to have every winer kicked for EPO or other performance drugs, this is just another attempt to get a french rider on the podium. Figure if they make the rules, then there is a better chance of them being able to exclude/ban any riders that they dont like.
ASO has been buying up all the 'Historic' classics, that way they can ultimately control who wins eventually. The ASO has had all the teams sign some very one sided contracts to be allowed to race. Basically they say if the 'feel you will harm the race' they can ban you and kick your team. (not all the teams went for it, they did make them adopt some provisions.
UCI while its motives are not 'that' pure either, did give the riders some protection and recourse should they be accused of something, under french law, they have none.
The European Cycling Union did come down against ASO(and FFC), but they refused to listen, and they threatened to sue UCI (the international cyclist union) in french court (of course, they are going to cheat and make sure they win this however they can).
MHO

EDIT-funny thing, in all the french rags this is all you read, Italy, hardly a peep, the Italians dont give a crap, its been hard to find a lot of news on whats going on here too.

The low-point so far IMO was the lynching of Rasmussen last year, with no actual _proof_ of doping whatsoever ; in all fairness, his actual offense should have warranted no more than a slap on the wrist --- real reason they wanted to get rid of him being, apparently, that he didn't belong to the right age group, and therefore was not the right person for the "clean, young, new Tour" image they were trying (and dismally failed) to project

I'm actually hoping UCI come down really hard, the levels of corruption are becoming intolerable...

JabbaPapa wrote:

The low-point so far IMO was the lynching of Rasmussen last year, with no actual _proof_ of doping whatsoever ; in all fairness, his actual offense should have warranted no more than a slap on the wrist --- real reason they wanted to get rid of him being, apparently, that he didn't belong to the right age group, and therefore was not the right person for the "clean, young, new Tour" image they were trying (and dismally failed) to project I'm actually hoping UCI come down really hard, the levels of corruption are becoming intolerable...

I couldn't agree more