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Bruni is applying "new" logic to a system he's never been a victim of.
Easy to say it makes sense when you're not injured, part of team that goes defunct or other unknown.
1 blown ACL for Loic & the new format, you may NEVER see him get back to a 30 man field. Heck.. Amaury & AG might never crack again. And that's because I do not buy into YEAR LONG protected status. Should always be rolling race to race. Start the season protected. You're ahead of everyone. Want it for the next race...earn it.
Allowing 400 riders to register is an issue that needs a structure to address it. Cutting finals dilutes the World Cup. The sport is too randomly damaging to all.
If you want to give the top 60 from 2023 automatic registration for 2024 & then set up 4 continental qualifiers for the remaining registration slots that each award 20 registration slots...do that.
Then allow each continent to elect 5-10 representatives to fill any vacant slots in the month leading up to a World Cup. Cap registration at 120. Require payment for the full season from factory teams. Allow factory team 4 slots. Rider injured-MUST fill slot with a pre-qualified racer from 1 of the Continental qualifiers.
But before any of this...require Discovery/ESO to place $250k prize money per sex in a trust fund to pay out to TOP TEN per event.
If you really knew all the financials in the background, you'd know Discovery/ESO & UCI are stealing money from the racers every single event
It really sounded like this Discovery folks got him hook line and sinker.
“All we have to do is get rid of all this riff raft and then we will make you a star like Louis Hamilton!”
Give the riders two qualifying runs instead, mechanical or a crash doesn't take you out of the race as you have two runs to make it happen. Same as in motocross nobody is protected but they get two practice sessions to make a qualifying time and also learn the track, DH you have lots of practice before Qualis as well. Imagine if Jett Lawrence or Eli Tomac got a flat in qualifying and couldn't race.
There will always be some kind of protection status or some way to ensure the top riders/big names aren't out of the race that's just how it has to be the top riders are what the fans are there to see and tuning in for.
5 spot podium makes less sense with only 30 riders. And it seems like they may even try to get to less than 30 at some point.
They just change the rules when they want, don’t be surprised if it happens mid season next year.
Not wearing sponsor-appropriate gear is a huge no-no. Amateurs in many sports get dropped for this kind of stuff, imagine how mad brands feel when a high-profile pro gets caught. It's a much bigger deal than many think it is. Some contracts will even fine the parties involved for this.
Team Sharpie tires won't get you in trouble if the team allows/decides to do it, especially if it offers a competitive edge. Shimano teams running non-Saint cranks probably get leniency because Shimano doesn't offer shorter Saint cranks. It's not unheard of for teams/companies to allow for products that they don't make if they've been unbranded enough. Look at Nino running a non-Reverb dropper for a while. Surely the influx of droppers into XC a few years back had some great unbranded, not sponsor-correct posts
A helmet is just too high-viz to get away with and be able to justify. 100% wouldn't care as long as it was any of their helmets. Redbull wouldn't be happy it isn't a proper paint job but probably okay with having any of their branding on the helmet in an extreme situation. All the talk of him not having a spare helmet available. I'm sure Trek would've been fine with an out-of-box helmet with a few RB stickers slapped on over rocking the wrong helmet
Will TFR drop Kade? He already said that he's done racing for a while. So dropping the Factory Racing is pretty obvious, most likely keep the Trek. This kind of thing definitely isn't going to reflect well for him in the future with some team managers though.
The bottom line is that there are contracts signed and money paid. You may not like it, but that's how sponsorship works.
I'm guessing that RB pays as much or more as his team pays him to race. I don't know how well for MTB but in moto RB is really picky and they pay good money to make sure other sponsors or even helmet brand logos are not on the helmet. My guess is 100% wouldn't pay the team for a breach in contract, but Kade gets more money to run a proper RB helmet. The team was worried about their check, Kade was worried about his. They couldn't agree so they didn't let him run.
Yeah I don't think people understand how big of a deal it is to wear competitors gear while under sponsorship contracts. My guess is Kade must have destroyed his helmet in a crash and asked to borrow Jacksons to be able to still be a Redbull helmet.
I would think his team would guide him in the right direction in this situation, ideally the solution is to find a black 100% helmet and find some stickers to slap on it and hope somebody at Redbull doesn't get pissed. Probably not the easiest thing to do while in a foreign country but you'd think he would have a contact at Redbull that could give him some guidance.
Bottom line is 100% is a team sponsor, Redbull is a personal sponsor so the team probably said well you HAVE to wear 100% helmet the redbull branding is no concern to trek factory racing. Kade is not racing next year so piss off the team for the last race with them or piss off Redbull which is a lifelong sponsor for most of these guys is a no brainer.
If it really is the helmet, the funniest part about them telling him he couldnt drop for qualies is that it has brought WAY more attention to the fact that he was wearing a different helmet than if he would have just raced in Jackson’s helmet. If his team didn’t realize that would be the case, they are kinda clueless. qualies aren’t even televised, if it was really that big of a deal to them, let him drop and he if made it into semis find him a helmet for the next day.
I Just find it really strange that a factory team and/or RB doesn't have a couple of spare helmets for each rider. A small crash is enogh to damage/scratch a helmet. But then again, saving money everywhere possible?
No way it was the helmet.
The gypsy comment we could have done without. Hopefully, it was an honest mistake of not realizing what he was saying.
I would also assume they have a spare helmet but for whatever reason, it may not have made the trip to North America. Maybe the person responsible forgot it or they simply didn't have room to pack it.
I don't think so.
He sounds like he's in his own French little bubble on that one. Was talking about his friends being able to go race someplace else and do good, but could never make it at World Cup. Just an odd conversation.
Hell, if we didn't have gypsies, there wouldn't be a WynTV, an Ed Bull Media House. Sam Hill, Chris Kovarik, Nathan Rennie. The couch surfers and burrito scavengers wind up being the best of us!
Right now, Bruni is living in a echo chamber where everyone is telling him he's the greatest. Don't know what kind of background he comes from, but World Cup doesn't need to be a rich kid sport. 50,000 people aren't lining a downhill course for 30 dudes. I know I'd never drive to SnowShoe to watch a bunch of "qualifying" runs and a 30 man final.
It's not even worth walking down the hill in your party pants for only 30 people. 1.5 to 2 mile long mountain hike...for 30?
I like Loic, but I think he's bought into the DHI could be like F1 hype. I'm sure it's appealing to him as one of the top riders, coming from a country that elevates cycling disciplines to more prominence than many others and puts a lot of energy into their youth development programs. In addition, he's on one of the top teams that also sees itself as a bit of an F1 style team in being on the cutting edge of technology and data. So he looks at F1 and thinks, "How cool would it be if I was like Max and our races were that kind of spectacle?" And the steps he's espousing ARE the logical way to get there. The problem is that the logic model doesn't work. DHI will NEVER be F1, and we need to stop trying to make it F1. We need to take the things that make it special and accentuate those things, and stop trying to inject Drive to Survive themes into the sport.
As a fluent French speaker who lived in France for 14 years, I can offer a bit of context. The “gypsy” term is basically used interchangeably with “camper”, not intended as a slur but more of a funny way of describing anybody living out of a van for a while…it obviously gets lost in translation here.
Gypsy seems to be a word that gets a reaction on your side of the pond. It isn't the same over here. In the UK we have TV programmes with the word in the title and no one bats an eye.
It's considered a pejorative in many settings; the preferred term is Romani BUT:
"In the United Kingdom, the term Gypsies is preferred by some of the English and Welsh Romanies, and is used to refer to them in official documentation.[84][85] The attendees of the first World Romani Congress in 1971 unanimously voted to reject the use of all exonyms for the Romani, including Gypsy.[82]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
For me it wasn't the word but the derogatory tone in which it was delivered.
Just listening to the WynTV earlier during a break.
I knew Laurie was showing tremendous signs of fatigue. But just a quick shout out that he gets the medical all clear soon.
Cyst on thyroid is not ideal.
maybe Loic should do a season in a Sprinter van, sharing with another rider, eating stale vegemite sandwiches, riding a flogged out bike and living on 100 Euro a week before coming up with statements like that, He's never done it hard, never slept in a prostitutes dungeon (wtf frotha?)
It's a right of passage for up and coming Aussies and Kiwi's to sleep in a van by the skin of their teeth on a clapped out bike, doing surprisingly well and then party harder that night. I could name 10 pro's that stemmed from Vanzac life and prior.
Came out very aloof and elitist, I'm a huge fan of Loic but that was a shit of a thing to say about his fellow competitors. The sport is based on inclusiveness to all who think they can turn up and hang with the best in the world.
Remember the denim destroyer, literally the dude would be flipping pancakes at his restauraunt, get in his van, qualify in the top 60 in fuckin jeans and his phone in his pocket then bugger off home. Those stories and talents are gone in Loic's Utopia.
I'd like to make a t-shirt of guys in vans Loic has lost to and sell it for cost to World Cup fans.
Loic came off as spoiled, entitled, and afraid of the crop of new riders starting to hit WC races.
He sounds like he wants to limit the talent pool because it makes it easier for him to stay on top. He already got beat by 2 first year elite riders and multiple riders with number plates greater than 30. He wants to limit that in the future.
I do think he and a lot of the riders / team managers are towing the line of "ESO wants the sport to succeed" because of fear of more problems.
Prostitute’s dungeon
oh Frotha. Also, I know the difference of how the UK and Eastern Europe decipher the word Gypsy. Do ya like dags?
Almost all large company budgets for 2024 are set by this time of year. Some company's fiscal calendars start in June
ESO not having a finalized and released 2024 calendar is ridiculous. It screws over the existing sponsors and teams while also signaling to potential sponsors the they will get screwed just as hard by ESO.
Don’t worry! Lots of vital experts will be along to tell you that the people in the pits have had the full schedule/calendar for weeks now and how you’re ignorant and just an alarmist ESO hater.
Love that movie.
MSA had one of the highest number plates on the podium that I can remember!
Really speaks to the depth of the field, and the magic of DH where if it clicks on the right day for the right rider you can get an amazing result
I like the guy also.. but yes, he is deep dunk in the liquors of sucess and sanitizing DH like F1, calling gypsies etc is something very odd coming from a down to earth, amicable and french guy..
Well...I've talked to more than 1 person who has seen the schedule so there's that.
Have to understand from Jodie that the schedule on paper does nothing for him. He needs all of the big, detailed logistics for each venue, the costs per, fees and way more than just dates on a page.
ESO isn't telling any of that for the same reason you wouldn't. They don't know.
Some privateers I follow in social media are pretty pissed about Brunis opinion and I have to agree, most of us dont have the resources to be like him but dont really care as we do it simply for the love of this sport, as do the privateers. Ofc they want to win and succeed but I'm fairly certain they will continue riding bikes even if they dont make it big.
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