Cycling: During the week, Oleg Tinkov, owner of the Tinkoff-Saxo racing team, surprised the four strongest cyclists with a EUR 1 million offer.
According to him, he would be happy if, in addition to Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), Chris Froome (Sky), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) would contest all of the major national tours next year. Each of them would then receive 250.000 euros from Tinkov.
Contador has already announced that he wants to compete in both the Giro and the Tour next year, while Froome and Nibali are expected to focus on the event in France.
“The balance of power is then simply unequal”, Tinkov told La Gazetta dello Sport , whose aim is to draw more attention to the sport by allowing the strongest cyclists to compete on an equal footing. "It can't be that the strongest round riders avoid each other during the season and then win relatively easily."
Tinkov receives support for his project from Sky manager Dave Brailsford, who told Cycling Weekly that he would take part in all three tours "meritorious" designated. "I like that point of view. I think we can all agree that we want to see the best riders compete against each other throughout the year.”
However, a final decision as to which of the named drivers will drive which races in the coming year has not yet been made.
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