My point is that cycling is a very weird form of team sport. Yes, there is a team classification at the Tour, but it’s a side show. The “winner” of the Tour this year was Tadej, an individual winner. That’s who will be remembered. Very few will remember which team won, or even that it wasn’t Tadej’s.
Take professional basketball. The big prize goes to the team that wins. They also honor the best player in the form of a MVP, but the MVP is a side note.
The equivalent in cycling would be if the NBA gave it’s biggest champ prize this year to Giannis Antetokounmpo. When the Milwaukee Bucks won, Giannis would be seen as the champ, because he was the best player, and the rest of the team received a side prize in the team classification. That’s how the NBA, and just about every other pro team sport would look, if we applied the pro cycling structure.
The winner of the Super Bowl this year would’ve been Tom Brady, with his team getting a little side trophy. The same can be applied to baseball, futball (soccer), whatever, take your pick.
Just because something has been done a certain way for a long time doesn’t make that something intelligent. Just because pro cycling has created a system in which a team works largely for the glory of one team member does not mean it must be that way. No Greek God from on high has come down and declared that pro cycling must be structured the way it is.
It’s structured the way it is because it allows a given star rider to receive a competitive advantage within the rules. The success of the best rider is augmented by how good his teammates are. The minions work for the glory of their particular MVP, and get a little side trophy if he, or she, wins. It’s all very bizarre. But it has been done that way for so long, that most accept it as normal.
Have you ever pondered that nature of this world? About how much we all accept as normal which is actually utterly bizarre when looked at from the outside?
If the current state of pro cycling is your thing, then hallelujah, you have the sport you desire.
My suggestion is that cycling is arbitrarily structured in an exceptionally unintelligent fashion that undermines the very nature of honest competition. The team and technological components have created a very synthetic sport, a weakened sport, with far less interesting races. And it does not have to be that way. It can be more pure if the powers at be wished it. But they don’t because they are unimaginative and lack vision.
Purifying pro cycling in no way undermines the tactical component. It would make genuine tactics that much more important. As we saw in the women’s Olympic road race, the entire peloton had been so dumbed down by years of radios that they literally didn’t bother to count that 3 riders went way out in front, and only 2 came back. That shows how radios have taken tactics AWAY from the riders and put it in the hands of computers run by race support staff that know precisely where each rider in the entire race is located, and at what pace who must go in order to catch them where. That is not tactics. That is pathetic.
And the peloton could’ve asked their team cars in the Olympics, but did not. The team cars could’ve informed the riders directly, but did not. The whole charade was exposed because of the purity of the Olympics. The Dutch silver medalist said it best afterwards, “I feel so stupid”. Yes, that’s about right.
For me, if cycling is a team sport, then make it a team sport. The grand winner of the Tour de France would be the team that does the best. And have a MVP within that team if you like.
Or, make it an individual sport in which one rider is crowned the champ. Like tennis, or golf. But in so doing, let the rider make their own way through the course without direct help. Like marathons, or triathlons.
As it’s currently constructed, pro cycling is a largely individual sport in which tons of cheating is allowed within the rules. What great road races the Olympics provided. Carapaz won the individual race gold primarily based upon his own merits. The “teams” largely self destructed. Tadej could manage no better than 3rd when all the cheating was removed.
And bravo to Anna Kiesenhofer for sticking it to the man. When the playing field was made level, she beat the best riders in the world. A tiny doctor of mathematics who retired from cycling 5 years ago.
It’s amazing what can happen when you remove institutionalized cheating 
