The Grande Boucle is underway again, and as strange as ever. In Sunday's L'Equipe, Catherine Marsal
wrote an article detailing the legal woes of the race over last few years, and the race almost
didn't happen this year, due to rider complaints (too many transfers, etc.) and subsequent problems
with the UCI. I knew that already, but she also described a more intrinsic problem, which is that
the race is run by two organisations which don't get along. There is the organisation Team France
Organisation (TFO), of the organiser Pierre Boue, and another one, Racing Club Organisation (RCO),
which owns the dates of the race, whatever that means. This RCO has been run by Marianne Mezin
since 1997, and things have been rocky ever since. Since Boue was firing his employees in seemingly
random fashion, RCO took him to court, and I can't figure out what happened from the article, but
the upshot is that RCO wasn't in the picture, and the race no longer had the dates for the race.
Since TFO was no longer viable, Boue created a new company, Velo Feminin (they have a website), and
asked to get dates fhave the for the race from the UCI and French Cycling Federation, who refused.
He then went to court and manged to convince them that Mezin had been elected president of RCO
under irregular circumstances, and Mezin had to resign. However TFO still had to pay RCO the 22,445
Euros owed for the prize money put up by RCO for the 2002 grande Boucle. This situation has still
not been settled.
The UCI and French Federation agreed that the club of the Midi-Pyrenees could temporarily have the
dates of the race and this club also had to pay the prize money for the 2003 race, and make sure
that UCI regulations are followed. There is an UCI observer present at the race.
In the meantime, Boue is facing a debt of 300,000 Euros, and has had to make drastic cutbacks in the
race. In particular, he says he had to replace three star hotels with Formule I hotels (the cheapest
hotels, where you there is no front desk, you pay with a credit card, no restaurant, etc.), he only
had money for one car per team on the ferry to Corsica, and meals have been replaced by meal
vouchers honoured by some restaurants, usually the cheapest ones, these meal tickets are best known
because that is what homeless people ask for when begging on the Paris Metro.
Otherwise, more mystery surrounding the Grande Boucle. In particular, last year's "godmother",
Cynthia Compain. She was listed as riding in the race on the velo feminin website, riding for the
team Pruneau d'Agen, but is not listed in the Stage 1 and 2 results. In fact, there are 72 in the
list of riders on the website, but only 66 riders listed as finishing stages 1 and 2, without any
mention of people abandoning the race, or missing the time cut.
Cynthia has also had her share of problems. She was riding for team Mazza, which was scheduled to
ride in the race, but Mr. Mazza decided at the last minute that he didn't want his team to
participate, and she had to find a new ride. Last Tuesday, someone at Vincennes asked her if she was
riding, she said yes, but refused to state which team (4 days before the race!). Riding in the
Grande Boucle is essential to her career, modeling career, that is, since that is the only race
those people seem to understand. Her level is as bad as ever, she finished second to last in the
French ITT championships, and that's supposed to be her strong point. She has a website now.
-ilan