The 'New' Classic

In professional cycling, there are five classic races called “monuments” because it is considered the most prestigious. A “classic” can be described as a one-day race, with distances between 250-300km, and should be at least a hundred years old. The oldest is La Doyenne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, which had its first edition in 1892 and the youngest, the Tour of Flanders, will blow a hundred candles next year. In between are the Paris-Roubaix (1986), Milan-San Remo (1907) and Tour of Lombardy (1905).

Lately, there is a new race in Italy called the Strade Bianchi, which has the making of a monument. Born in 2007, the race got its inspiration from Flanders and Paris-Roubaix- short steep hills and ancient, cobbled, farm roads. While Italy has lots of the former, it has little of the latter. And for this reason, the Strade Bianchi is raced in the hilly Tuscan region with sections that include unpaved, white gravel, hence the name,StradeBianchi.

For the first two years, it was called Monte PaschiEroica followed by Montepaschi Strade Bianche in the next 3 years before finally settling as Strade Bianchi. It was wasn’t very popular in its first year when it was held in October, a time when most cyclists are headed for their well deserved vacation. When it was moved to March the next year, the big names started appearing as it was a nice preparation race for the real “monuments” in the later weeks. Fabian Cancellara won that year and this year while last year’s numero uno, Philippe Gilbert, won it last year, not a bad list of winners considering how new this race is.

When the race is wet, it is slippery, muddy and very dangerous. When it is dry, it is dusty. And this is what makes the Strade very different from the semi-classics around this time of year. Expect a lot of big names to show up in the next few years.

Take home pay

Cycling is not a glamorous sport. There’s no such thing as a cyclist/hunk, and if there were one, that athlete would be a bad cyclist. Like most endurance athletes, cyclists are gaunt and have a face of a famine survivor. In other words, cyclists are no Azkhals.

The take home pay isn’t exactly rich either, in fact, it is measly compared to the other sports. So consider these:

The average NBA player gets USD 5.5 million while the average salary for a baseball player in the MLB gets 3.3 mil. For the average salary of the high wire world of the NFL, its 770k. In the Italian Serie A, the average pay is 5 million Euros. Now, brace yourself- the professional who rides for a Pro Tour team (top 18 teams according to the UCI) gets takes home 190K Euro a year!(That’s over Php10 million/year guaranteed!)

Boxers, golfers, tennis players and retired athletes are not included here since their salary sources are different. Cadel Evans, the defending Tour de France champion gets USD5 million/year while Kobe Bryant gets 5 times more than the Aussie. Valentino Rossi and Dale Earnhardt makes about US35 mil. Michael Jordan, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, at their primes, were rumored to earn at least US50 million/year!!! - THE FREEMAN