Cyclopedia (52 page)

The Worlds has always been contested by national teams and are run at a different venue each year, always on a circuit. This gives the racing a completely different tenor to most professional events. The great issue is whether national trainers can pull together a disparate group of pros, most of whom race in competing teams for the rest of the season, and turn them into a unit even though it may be in their interests to work for a pro teammate who has a different national jersey on.

The issue is particularly acute in Italy, where the world championship has massive significance, with a tradition going back to Alfredo Binda and FAUSTO COPPI and the
azzurri
are always under colossal pressure. Italian fans still hark back to an episode in Holland in 1948 where Coppi and his great rival GINO BARTALI refused to cooperate and disappeared lamely to the changing rooms.

There are often claims that riders have betrayed their national teammates and notorious cases where this has clearly happened. GREAT BRITAIN was rocked by a scandal at the 2004 world championship in Madrid when two British riders who race for Italian pro teams were seen to work for the Italians. The coach resigned and the cyclists were told they would never wear the national jersey again.

All world championship winners are awarded a rainbow jersey, which can be seen in pictures going back to 1924, and is subtly different depending on the discipline—the time-trial jersey, for example, incorporates
a stopwatch. From the top down the stripes are blue, red, black, yellow, and green. A world champion has the right to wear the jersey when competing in his or her discipline. For example, in a time-trial stage of the TOUR DE FRANCE the world time-trial champion can wear his rainbow jersey, while the road champion can wear his in the road race stages.

Once the cyclist's year as world champion has ended, he or she retains the right to wear the rainbow stripes on the collar or cuff of their racing jersey. There is some debate about whether the professional road race jersey carries a CURSE, due to the fact that world champions have frequently failed to live up to their titles, and there have been one or two cases of bizarre injury and even death.

Traditionally the world championships were held in late August, enabling the winner of the Tour de France to carry his form through to the title races. The TEAM TIME TRIAL title was held alongside the road races, contested by amateur teams of four riders. In 1994 the team time trial championship was replaced with a solo TIME-TRIALLING title; the first winner was CHRIS BOARDMAN.

In 1996, the format was radically altered to coincide with the category changes under HEIN VERBRUGGEN that enabled professional cyclists to enter the OLYMPIC GAMES. The professional and amateur categories were abolished and replaced with Elite—top-ranked senior riders from the various continents and those riding for UCI-listed teams—and Under-23. The road events were separated from the track, and the road races moved to late September, after the VUELTA A ESPAÑA. For several years the junior men and women's events were run alongside the seniors'.

From 2012 the Worlds format will be extended, with the junior men's and women's races integrated once again with the senior events, and the racing taking place over a full seven days. The UCI has also introduced a team time trial for men's and women's trade teams on the preceding Sunday, while the Worlds will include a CYCLOSPORTIVE for amateur riders.

Other world championships include: track, held in late March; BMX, held in summer; MOUNTAIN BIKING cross-country and DOWNHILL, held in September; INDOOR CYCLING, held by November; CYCLO-CROSS, held in late February; PARALYMPIC cycling, held in November; masters (40–70-year olds) held in October.

YATES, Sean
(b. England, 1960)

The most popular cyclist in Britain since TOM SIMPSON, a legendary hard nut nicknamed “Horse” or “Tonk” for his ability to ride for long spells at high speed in any weather while seemingly unaware of any physical pain. Yates is a devotee of extreme sports—skiing, ice-climbing, motorcycling, bodybuilding—who found his metier in cycling, where he was a British national champion at TIME TRIALLING.

After a spell racing as an amateur in Paris at the ACBB club, he turned professional in 1982 as one of PEUGEOT's FOREIGN LEGION but did not break through until 1988 when he won stages in the VUELTA A ESPAÑA and TOUR DE FRANCE, the latter a time trial at what was then a record speed. A distinctive figure, who rode with his handlebars drooping, his shorts pulled halfway up the thigh, and had a mass of varicose veins on his right calf, Yates became a mainstay of the 7-Eleven and Motorola teams (see USA). He was a hero of LANCE ARMSTRONG when the future seven-time Tour winner turned professional in 1992, while BRADLEY WIGGINS talks fondly of watching his fine ride in the 1994 PARIS–ROUBAIX Classic.

That year Yates also wore the Tour's yellow jersey for a day; he was ready to retire but Armstrong persuaded him to keep going for two more years. After retirement, he managed the British team sponsored by Linda McCartney Foods, then became a
directeur sportif
at CSC before moving to
Armstrong's Discovery Channel and Astana squads, all the time riding his beloved time trials when back home in Britain. His 2010 move to Sky as a
directeur sportif
saw him complete the circle by returning to a British team.

ZIMMERMAN,
Arthur Augustus
“
A. A
.” (b. Camden, New Jersey, 1869, d. 1936)

Nicknamed “the Flying Yankee,” or “the Jersey Skeeter” because of his pedaling speed, Zimmerman was the first real world star of cycling, the fastest track sprinter of cycling's early years, a prolific record-breaker, and the winner of over 1,400 races. He was the first man to get inside 12 seconds for the flying 200 m (a good time currently is around 10 seconds) while his kilometer world record of 1 minute 9.2 seconds set in 1894 lasted more than 20 years. In 1893 he was the first man to be crowned world sprint champion.

Zimmerman was famed for his rapid pedaling style, estimated at up to 190 revolutions per minute. Together with Frank Bowden of his sponsor RALEIGH he produced an early training manual:
Points for Cyclists with Training.

Like Major TAYLOR—who he met just as the Major was beginning his rise in the early 1890s—Zimmerman was a product of American track racing, then at its zenith; like Taylor he was sensationally popular when he raced in Europe. He won gold in the first WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS in 1893 but subsequently his amateur status was called into question. His prizes included bicycles, horses and carriages, pianos, a house, land, silver plates, coffins, jewelery, clocks, and diamonds, and he used his name to market products such as shoes, toe-clips, and clothes. In 1893 the NCU banned him after he struck a
deal to ride RALEIGH bikes, so Zimmerman turned professional, asking that his contracts in Paris be paid in gold.

After dismaying the French due to his lean frame—“he looks as if he eats nothing but string” wrote one journalist—Zimmerman won his first races at the Buffalo stadium in Paris from the front with such ease that he was asked to make it look harder; instead, he won from behind. He followed up his French tour with a trip to Australia, drawing a crowd of 27,000 in Sydney. But as with Taylor, the strain of travel and racing caught up with him and he was burned out by his late 20s. He stopped racing in 1905 and ran a hotel until his death in 1936. The Swiss Urs Zimmerman, who finished third in the 1986 Tour de France, is no relation.

 

(SEE ALSO
TRACK RACING
,
UNITED STATES
)