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  • Interview.Javier Guillén: "This could be worse than doping and the 2008 crisis"

Amid so much uncertainty, with no deadlines to hold on to or guarantees of when it will gradually be possible to return to normal, in the cycling community there are hardly three widely shared certainties about the future in the medium term: 1. It will be materially impossible for the vast majority of races that have been postponed by the pandemic compete in 2020. 2. The Tour, sooner rather than later, no matter how much ASO, the organizing company, continues to resist taking the step, is going to have to give up starting on June 27, as until today it is still planned to do so. . 3. But the 2020 Tour, at one time or another of the year - and unless the sanitary paralysis lasts until the fall - will take place. Yes or yes. It is the jewel in the crown and the race that justifies many of the sponsorships of the teams, the goose that lays golden eggs for a sport that lives permanently on the financial wire.

From here, everything is doubts between organizers, teams, cyclists and sponsors. The official data, compiled by the International Cycling Union (UCI) dated April 3, is that 229 road races of different categories (male, female, sub'23 ...) have already been suspended or canceled. Since then, others such as the Tour of Switzerland (June) and the Tour of Utah (August) have been added. These two have opted for a definitive cancellation to think about 2021, but most are waiting for a new date.

«The Milan-San Remo was the first to choose to postpone rather than cancel, the rest of us followed the trend a bit, in case there was a solution. In reality, what we are doing is transferring the dead person to the UCI as responsible for the calendar, "acknowledges Julián Eraso, director of the Tour of the Basque Country, a career that should have started yesterday in Eibar. In fact, 17 of the 19 World Tour events (cycling's first division) affected by the pandemic have simply been suspended pending a new date.

Until November

But not all of them fit even remotely and the UCI has already warned that the priority will be the dispute of the three Grand Tours and the five monuments , always respecting the races that already have an assigned date. With these premises, lace borders on the impossible, because between its preparation and its dispute the big laps need to have almost a month each. The option of taking the elite calendar until November, usually unsuitable, is already being considered, but perhaps the Giro, Tour and Vuelta dispute may not be possible. Not to mention that cyclists can not go from rolling at home to facing three weeks of competition from one day to the next. They will need a kind of preseason and shorter running races.

"Honestly, I don't think anything will be done until September. We are going to try, but we have our feet on the ground and we know that it will be very difficult, "says Rubén Peris, director of the Volta a Catalunya, which should have been held at the end of March. And if it were possible to recover some minor races, the UCI would have the role of deciding which ones, since each large organizing company (RCS Sport, ASO and Flanders Classics are the most important) will try to make their own and the small ones prevail, in the case of the Basque Country and Catalonia, will also fight. Or maybe not.

“Even if the UCI told us that we can celebrate the Tour of the Basque Country at any time of the year, we would have to see if we have the capacity to do it. I have already made some consultations and, as the municipalities, the county councils and the companies are staying economically, it remains to be seen that they can now face the agreed sponsorships, "says Eraso.

A reflection shared by Peris, who adds in his case the difficulty of being able to use certain roads and have hotel places in Catalonia at some times of the year, «because if there were already a certain normality for cycling, there would also be so that people go on vacation ». The puzzle, in short, is impossible.

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