With the Belgian Classic season due to start building pace tomorrow with the running of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, tensions will increase prior to the race itself over the contentious race radio issue. As stated yesterday, Rabobank and several other teams plan to start with radios, defying the current UCI ban pertaining to all events bar WorldTour races.
“We will start with earpieces,” Lars Boom told NOS Sport. “It’s important that we are heard and decisions aren’t just taken behind a large boardroom table, which we just have to say ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ and obey.”
The BMC Racing team has stated that it won’t be part of the protest, though, making it clear that it doesn’t intend to go head to head with the UCI on the matter.
General manager Jim Ochowicz has a long history of working with radios, having been part of the Motorola team which introduced such communication to the peloton back in 1991. He wants radios to remain, but said that he felt that the protest was not the best way to go about it.
“We will not jeopardize the goodwill of race organizers by participating in any type of negative action," he stated. However he is adamant that the matter needs to be addressed properly, and not steamrolled through by the governing body. “We immediately call upon the UCI to sit down in good faith with the appropriate partners to workout a compromise that is in the best interests.”
“Technology has contributed in many ways to the advancement of the sport - from carbon fiber frames, performance data collection, untraditional products and race radios," Ochowicz said in a team release. "Race radios belong in the sport to provide safety and communications."
He warned that the situation in the past was very dangerous, something which changed when Motorola brought in radios. “Prior to that, team directors were forced to drive their cars directly into the peloton, roll down their windows and shout out instructions to the riders. This could happen anywhere from the very front to the very back of peloton throughout a race.
“Most of today's riders and team directors never had to experience those horrifying days in the races. I did, and they were most certainly not safe situations.”
It remains to be seen how many other teams will align themselves with Rabobank tomorrow, and what proportion will adopt the position advocated by Ochowicz.
BMC directeur sportif John Lelangue explained his decision on Twitter, prompting an irked response from RadioShack manager Johan Bruyneel.
“[We are] only showing respect for organisers and fans,” Lelangue wrote. “Respecting the history of those races. In democracy, everyone can have an opinion and assume his idea even if the majority thinks differently.”
Bruyneel has long been at loggerheads with the UCI over the radio ban, and doesn’t agree with his fellow Belgian. “John, why don’t you say it as it is: ‘I was part of the working group who approved it?’”
UCI President Pat McQuaid has said that if the riders insist on starting tomorrow with radios, the UCI will withdraw its backing from the event.
Whether or not that happens, it appears increasingly likely that the UCI is going to have to sit down with team representatives and negotiate the issue.