Cycling Update: Tour of Flanders

When is change necessary?  The Tour of Flanders has been raced since 1913.  Over the years the route has changed quite a bit, but since 1973 it has been a fairly stable route.  They have finished in the same city every year since 1973 and this has meant that the second half of the race, where the cobbles and the climbs come into play, has gone over many of the same climbs year after year.  But this year the route will take a drastic change.

A new town has bought the rights to host the finish and this has forced a change in the second half of the race.  This has meant dropping some of the more legendary climbs from the race and that has really upset many in Belgium.  This is the Kentucky Derby of Belgium and I think to many this would be like moving the race to another venue.  On top of this change they have also added a finishing circuit, something that Flanders had never had in all of its history.  What this means is that they will enter the finishing city early on in the race and then run three circuits out and back as the finale of the race.  This probably more than anything else has really shaken up the critics of this change as it changes the dynamics of the race completely.  A circuit race, and there are plenty on the calendar, has a completely different feel to it than a point to point race.

Of course from a race organizers perspective bringing in the circuit makes perfect sense.  You can get a lot more bang for your buck as you can bring a larger group of people into a closer area, meaning your sponsors can get a lot more traffic at their tents and therefore pay more money for the privilege.  The race organizers have denied it was done for money, they say they feel it was time for a change, but I don't think anyone is buying that.  Truth is it probably was time for a change from a financial perspective.  Race sponsors have been getting harder to get and well established races all over the world have been failing due to a lack of financial support.

So back to the original question, when is change necessary?  The truth is in this case that I'm sad to say change was probably needed.  Financially races need all the help they can get and if this works as expected it could be a big improvement in the money available to make the Tour of Flanders possible.  Also the group that runs Flanders has now taken over management of a whole series of spring races in Belgium and so I'm sure they have a larger plan and vision for that goes beyond this race.  As much as I love tradition I understand that sporting events like this can only happen if the money is there to make them happen and so when you are forced to follow the money, often tradition gets dropped.  The funny thing is in 40 years this would be the new tradition and then all hell would be raised if there was a shift back to the old route.