Modeling Performances and Competitive Balance in Professional Road Cycling

Abstract

Why did cycling become professional as early as the late nineteenth century, while other sports (such as rugby) and other sport events (such as the Olympic Games) remained amateur until the 1980s? Why are the organizers of the most important bicycle races private companies, while in other sports such as soccer the main event organizer is a nonprofit organization? To what extent have bicycle races changed since the late nineteenth century? And how does cycling reflect long-term economic changes? The history of professional road cycling helps answer these questions and understand many related phenomena. This chapter provides a long-term, historical perspective on (1) professional road cycling's economic agents, i.e., the public, race organizers, team sponsors and riders, and the relationships amongst them; (2) cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union; and (3) professional cycling's final product, i.e., the show of bicycle races. More precisely, the chapter mostly focuses on the history of male professional road cycling in Western Europe since the late nineteenth century. It is founded on both an analysis of quantitative time series on the Grand Tours (and, to some extent, the classics) and a review of the existing literature on the history of professional cycling, whether economic history, institutional history, cultural history, or sport history.

Determinants of Cycling Performance: a Review of the Dimensions and Features Regulating Performance in Elite Cycling Competitions

“…Competition features have been shown not only to influence the type of cyclists likely to succeed, but the way cyclists compete, particularly in competitions consisting of a series of races, such as the Match Sprint, Keirin and Omnium tournaments in track cycling, and multi-day stage racing in road cycling. In multi-race or multi-stage contests, cyclists must balance their desired goals against the efforts required to achieve them, resulting in the emergence of strategies related to efficiency, whereby riders seek to optimise performance across a series of races to secure a larger objective [52]. For example, road cyclists aiming to win the general classification in a multi-day stage race often adopt conservative racing strategies in the early stages, saving energy for the critical moments of the competition [85].…”

“…The diversity of racing objectives amongst cyclists presents a unique challenge for researchers seeking to understand the performance of individual cyclists in real-world competition, namely that numerous competitors may deliberately withhold their best efforts [52]. Instead, riders may be motivated by objectives that have nothing to do with winning a particular race or stage [52].…”

“…The diversity of racing objectives amongst cyclists presents a unique challenge for researchers seeking to understand the performance of individual cyclists in real-world competition, namely that numerous competitors may deliberately withhold their best efforts [52]. Instead, riders may be motivated by objectives that have nothing to do with winning a particular race or stage [52]. For example, elite track cyclists have discussed employing conservative racing strategies, taking less risks and seeking only to finish above a certain rank in order to secure a qualification spot for a more prestigious race, such as the Olympic Games (K.E.…”

Temporary organizational forms and coopetition in cycling

“…To collect these data, breakaways were defined in the following way, based on Cabaud et al (2015). The first hours of a stage are each divided into 15-minute time intervals, and in this context a breakaway is accounted if it is still alive in the following 15-minute time interval.…”

What made the tour successful? Competitive balance in the tour de France, 1947–2017

“…However, the share of stages which are won by a breakaway rider rather than a peloton's sprinter is an indicator of the unpredictability of stages' scenarios, not an indicator of competitive balance among riders or teams. Cabaud et al review the literature on competitive balance in cycling and they introduce an interesting measure of competitive balance at the stage level called intra-stage 'competitive intensity' (Cabaud et al 2015). However, computing this sophisticated indicator requires within-stage data, which are not available in the long or even in the medium term (Scelles et al 2017).…”