UCI rules ruin another riders Southland plans

Oct 29th, 09. First it was Greg Henderson, now it’s Michael Vink who has been caught out by strict UCI rules. The teenager isn’t allowed to race for Subway-Avanti at Southland.

Michael Vink - too good too young

With Henderson, the problem was his team’s pro-tour status. Effectively, he is deemed too good to race at the PowerNet Tour of Southland, a UCI 2.1 event.

For Vink, it’s also his team status, combined with his age, which is the problem. Just shy of 18, Vink is too young to race a UCI event as part of a UCI Continental team.

Vink is a member of the Subway Avanti team as one of two development riders, but his young age prevents him from being a fully contracted rider under UCI rules.

Subway Avanti are currently the only registered UCI Continental men’s team in New Zealand, although they are expecting company in the next year or two.

The Subway Avanti team management thought they qualified for an exemption to allow Vink to race with them at the PowerNet Tour of Southland and named Vink in their team. The UCI allows trainees to race with their team from September 1st onwards as long as they meet strict criteria and the UCI is notified of the intentions.

“Whilst it appeared we met the criteria to include Michael for Southland, we had failed to notify the UCI by August 1st,” Team Manager Greg Hume told RoadCycling.co.nz

With the help of Kieran Turner and Bryan Simmonds at BikeNZ, Hume lobbied the UCI to allow Vink to compete. The Christchurch rider is in great form having recently won the Yunca Junior Tour of Southland amongst other races, and has been with the Subway Avanti team at their training camp preparing hard for Southland.

“Whilst the failure to notify the UCI by August 1st might have been an administration only error, the barrier appeared to be Michael’s actual age and license category around that time,” said Hume.

Hume even tried to negotiate his team racing as a club rather than a UCI team, but that too was denied although Hume says he wasn’t given a satisfactory reason.

The only solution the UCI gave which would allow Vink to compete was for Subway Avanti to register their complete 2010 team by October 31st. Unfortunately this wasn’t practical given the team’s ongoing negotiations with current and prospective riders, not to mention final preparations for two big tours in November.

The only silver lining for Vink is his ability to compete for another, non UCI registered team. “He will now be riding for Southland Times which will free him up to perhaps ride for himself rather than work for more senior team-mates,” said Hume.

“Despite the enormous amount of preparation he has been putting in for the tour, he did not appear too disheartened.”

Next year New Zealand will have five riders “too good” for our top events; Greg Henderson, Julian Dean, Tim Gudsell, Hayden Roulston and Sam Bewley. Add to that the age restrictions around the growing number of UCI Continental teams, and New Zealand events will start suffering because of the very thing they are helping create – an ever expanding pool of successful New Zealand cyclists.

Related article

• Subway Avanti Southland team - take 2
• Henderson denied Southland start