With AEG, they are pretty savvy business people. I there is a break-up between the two I would think that the ASO folks are being quite short-sighted in their business dealings.

I’m guessing that kind of thing isn’t going to change, because it stands to make the ASO some extra cash. And cash is good. The main issue behind the change seems to be concerns with the profit margins on the part of Marie-Odile, as far as I understand the thing.

My read is that there is some concern on the part of the owning family – Editions Amaury is still family-owned after a bazillion years – that the ASO has put itself into the midst of controversy that threaten the bottom line. It may well be that the change will be a matter of style rather than substance. That is, that the Tour will still take a hard-line, but it will do so in a way that is somehow less provocative and controversial. Impossible to say, however, as there isn’t a ton of information available on this – only hints and rumors and speculatin’s. It’s also possible that the change has very little to do with the Tour, doping, or anything else – simply a business decision that Clerc for whatever reason was ill-suited to his position. The ASO is more than the Tour, anyway.

I’m guessing the Tour course is unaffected – Clerc is the director of the ASO, not the director of the Tour. So, the same peeps who did last year’s Tour will likely do this year’s.

The UCI thing, that explains the discussions between Marie-Odile and McQuaid in recent weeks.

Agree about the French government and the doping issue. The race has to stay on good terms in relation to that.

I so hate it when they do that. They put up the article stub, I write the post, then they add more details. And then, I’m like, huh? How did Monty know that?

but at this point all the rioters are vacationing in southern Spain.

is that McQuaid won by outflanking Clerc (or, actually, by going over his head).

Who’d’a thunk that would have happened?

tumulteous but short…. mmmm