15-day Grand Tours and rider substitutes on Movistar manager's wishlist

Speaking to the media at the Tour Colombia press conference, Movistar team manager Eusebio Unzué has made a passionate case for cycling's need to move with the times.

Somewhat surprisingly, the 68-year-old has called for rider replacements, 15-day Grand Tours, and even aligned his WorldTeam with the new One Cycling league, reportedly headed up by Visma-Lease a Bike's Richard Plugge and backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Unzué has bemoaned cycling's treatment of its top stars, which the Spaniard went as far as to call 'inhumane'.

"Cycling is the most motionless sport at the moment. Almost everyone evolves, and we continue to do things like 40 years ago when I arrived," said the veteran manager, who has been at the head of the team since 1980 and Movistar's days as Reynolds and Banesto.

"We have to change the regulations, humanise the athlete, and maybe stop being so crude, so exaggeratedly inhumane."

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Pointing to the excess of race days on the calendar, it is little surprise, then, to see Unzué and Movistar form part of the band of teams who are in support of the new One Cycling project. Spearheaded, publicly at least, by Plugge, the reform project reportedly aims to reduce the cycling calendar to around 100 days and open new revenue streams for team sponsors.

"We can also not give many details about the phase in which it is currently," Unzué told a small group of media in Colombia, including Spanish newspaper AS, "but it is good that there are movements of this type and to see the reaction of the people, who are interested. We are supporters, and soon we will have more meetings."

Time for substitutes in the Grand Tours?

© Sprint Cycling Agency

Enric Mas crashed out of last year's Tour de France, leaving Movistar without their star man for the whole three weeks

Among the biggest frustrations for Unzué is the inability to field a replacement in Grand Tours should a member of the team crash out or fall ill within the first week of racing.

Cycling has flittered about with squad sizes throughout its history, but these days, teams are allowed eight riders at the start of the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and the Vuelta a España. Once the flag drops on the first stage, it is these eight riders, and eight riders only, who can chase success for the team in the race.

"Why not allow replacements in the Grand Tours when an abandonment occurs in the first week?" Unzué pondered. "All the teams are preparing with 10 or 11 riders, we leave two or three at home at the last moment, and if a rider falls, you are not entitled to any solution?

"Not a technical or tactical change, of course," he added. "In football, there was no possible replacement for years... Why not try, test, let's take a step forward and we'll see if everyone finds it interesting. We need change."

'15-day Grand Tours would be just as competitive'

Drifting into what he admitted was personal opinion, rather than the ambitions of the proposed One Cycling project, Unzué even floated the prospect of shortening Grand Tours in the future, which would be one of the most radical changes to the sport seen in decades.

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To change the length of the three-week races at this point would be akin to sacrilege for many, but Unzué is undeterred.

"If, for example, they were 15 days, all the Grand Tour riders could do the Giro, Tour and Vuelta in the same year," he proposed. "It would be just as competitive and would give more quality.

"The total number of riders per team [currently 30 per team in the WorldTour] should be reduced, perhaps, but the show would be bigger and the big stars would face each other more."

For the time being, Unzué is alone in calling for shortened Grand Tours, but his ideas are indicative of the progressive discussions that are at the height of the One Cycling project, which only seems to gain more traction with every passing week.