2025 Races with Spoilers.

[No Ta Doctor]

Søren Wærenskjold was the slightly surprise winner in the Tour of Denmark today, Philipsen beaten into fourth and Mads P into 9th. It was a bit of a messy sprint, not so much chaotic as not under control from any team. Mads P still leading the GC, Skjelmose dropped nearly a minute so that's that question answered.

Surprise package of the race (for me at any rate) is Lukáš Kubiš of Unibet Tietema Rockets (who I can't help thinking of as a YouTuber team...) with a 2nd and a 7th and now 2nd on GC. Having looked him up I can see he got top tens in OHN and KBK, so it's obviously me that's not been paying attention

 

[Gweeds]

Tour de Romandie Féminin news as of this morning from Dan Benson

Lidl-Trek, Canyon SRAM, EF Education-Oatly, AG Insurance Soudal, Visma-Lease a Bike and Team Picnic PostNL, will be technically disqualified from the race ahead of the TT after a disagreement with the UCI over new rules surrounding the use of rider tracking systems within the race.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) won yesterday's short TT in the Tour of Denmark, ahead of Alec Segaert and Mads P
Mads P still leads the GC by 10" from Niklas Larsen of BHS - PL Beton Bornholm

Today is the hardest stage - 226km with 1988m ascent, rolling terrain with small kickers in the finish. 30km in at nearly 50km/h and we're only just seeing the possibility of a break forming

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Tour de Romandie Féminin news as of this morning from Dan Benson

Lidl-Trek, Canyon SRAM, EF Education-Oatly, AG Insurance Soudal, Visma-Lease a Bike and Team Picnic PostNL, will be technically disqualified from the race ahead of the TT after a disagreement with the UCI over new rules surrounding the use of rider tracking systems within the race.

AG Insurance Soudal seem to be riding, the other five DQed.

The issue is apparently not with tracking per se, which teams are largely supportive of, but with it being introduced as a UCI mandatory requirement in this race for testing purposes, with no consultation and very little warning.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

AG Insurance Soudal seem to be riding, the other five DQed.

The issue is apparently not with tracking per se, which teams are largely supportive of, but with it being introduced as a UCI mandatory requirement in this race for testing purposes, with no consultation and very little warning.

Canyon SRAM statement gives quite a lot of detail
https://wmncycling.com/uci-fails-to...st-despite-teams-tracking-system-co-operation

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Canyon SRAM statement gives quite a lot of detail
https://wmncycling.com/uci-fails-to...st-despite-teams-tracking-system-co-operation

Going a bit further, it seems many (but not all) of the teams are associated with Velon, which already provides them with a tracker - this is where Velon's race data comes from. UAE ae also a Velon team but didnø't apparently have an issue.
At a guess the core problem is that the UCI may be moving too mandate a specific tracker, rather than mandating use of a a tracker and maybe some basic standards for it (like they do with other bike equipment). That could remove a potential source of sponsorship for teams, Ve,lon or not. The Velon teams may also have been concerned that choosing a particular rider and fitting the UCI tracker - if it involved removing the Velon tracker- might leave them in breach of contract in some way - therefore the insistence that the UCI nominated the rider and fitted the device

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Epic stage in the Tour of Denmark today, Mads P attacks nearly 70km out, bridges to the break, can't get a decent gap so attacks again, rides with Mads Wurtz Schmidt for a while then solos the last 30km with under a minute to the chasers the whole way.