Wout van Aert and Olav Kooij are but to be paid their prize cash earned from last yr’s Tour of Britain, following the liquidation of former race organiser SweetSpot.
The Visma-Lease a Bike duo have been essentially the most profitable riders on the race taking 5 of the eight levels between them, the general victory and factors classification. Nevertheless, their efforts from the two.Professional race in September are nonetheless to be financially rewarded.
“A complete of €113,080 shall be awarded in prize cash on the occasion,” reads the race’s laws web page, however Biking Weekly revealed yesterday that, in accordance with a number of sources, that is unlikely to be paid.
In accordance with the CPA, an organisation whose main purpose is to guard the rights and pursuits of riders, failure to pay would require British Biking, because the race’s nationwide federation, to settle the debt. Final yr, British Biking terminated SweetSpot’s deal to organise the Tour of Britain amid allegations that the promoter owed round £700,000 in race licence charges.
This was confirmed to Biking Weekly by Adam Hansen, the president of the CPA riders’ union in a press release which assured “a method or one other, finally, the riders will get their prize cash if the race continues in 2024.”
“The CPA is properly conscious of the scenario and has already began the method of going after the prize cash funds,” Hansen mentioned.
“If there may be not sufficient cash left to pay after the liquidation course of, it implies that the nationwide federation must bear the money owed of the earlier organisers underneath UCI laws.”
The way forward for the Tour of Britain, alongside the Girls’s Tour, was plunged into doubt when SweetSpot was compelled to nominate KRE company restoration to cope with the corporate’s collectors after coming into “voluntary liquidation.”
For the reason that firm’s collapse, British Biking has taken over the organisation of each the Tour of Britain and the now-renamed Tour of Britain Girls with hopes of them operating of their authentic 2024 slots in June and September.
The Girls’s Tour was absent from the Girls’s WorldTour calendar in 2023 after a failed crowdfunding marketing campaign compelled SweetSpot to cancel the race. British Biking CEO Jon Dutton has admitted it’s a race in opposition to the clock for the ladies’s race and that their “intention is to ship one thing in 2024, which then grows in 2025 and 2026.”
Given the uncertainty in regards to the race’s future and now the lacking prize cash, it’s understood that regardless of its beneficial place on the calendar as a pre-World Championships occasion, the larger groups reminiscent of Visma-Lease a Bike may skip the Tour of Britain – no less than till its scenario is stabilized.
When Dutton spoke to the press final week, together with CyclingWeekly , to stipulate the brand new males’s and girls’s occasion portfolio, he addressed the unpaid prize cash as a “legacy difficulty” left with the governing physique to resolve.
Talking in regards to the challenges now dealing with the race typically, he mentioned “This for us, is about rising confidence and credibility amongst groups. It is about constructing relationships,” he mentioned.
“We all know that we have an enormous job to do by way of our personal credibility and that can come from gaining momentum from no matter we are saying, backing that up with our actions, and forming these relationships.”
