Lotto Soudal signs Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg

[Madone69]

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lotto-soudal-sign-former-qhuebka-nexthash-pair-until-end-of-season

[Danger Dassie]

Pleasing to read, very happy for him and hugely deserved. Will be good to see the national jersey represented in the peleton!

[bleedToWin]

Lotto desperate in the relegation battle. I wonder if they got clarity on UCI points from free agents...

 

It is worth noting that Van Rensburg has already scored around 350 points across the South African and African Continental championships earlier in the year, something easily forecasted in advance and yet no team in the relegation fight picked him up after Team Qhubeka folded as a WorldTour team. As Van Rensburg was not contracted to a UCI team at the time of scoring those points, by our interpretation of the UCI rules these points effectively 'vanish' and cannot be attributed to Lotto Soudal.

The intention of the transfer rule introduced by the UCI is to prevent teams from 'buying' points at the end of the season from riders who did not score those points whilst on the team. Rather unhelpfully, the UCI has only expressly contemplated the scenario where a rider transfers from one team to another in the first sentence of the rule, without specifying what happens to a rider's points if they had no UCI team when scoring UCI points.

The second sentence is more telling, which states that only points obtained from the date of transfer until the end of the season count to the new team. We consider a new signing to be a transfer as in reality there are no 'transfers' in professional cycling, old contracts are terminated and new ones are signed, so transfer really means "date of signing the contract with the new team." Perhaps Lotto-Soudal thought this was a loophole they could exploit and even received confirmation from the UCI that Van Rensburg's previously accumulated points would count to their total. If this is indeed the case then we would expect other teams in the fight who could be leapfrogged by Lotto-Soudal later in the year, like Israel, to put up a fight at CAS if their WorldTour licence is rejected based on the sporting criteria.

[Shebeen]

23 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

Lotto desperate in the relegation battle. I wonder if they got clarity on UCI points from free agents...

 

It is worth noting that Van Rensburg has already scored around 350 points across the South African and African Continental championships earlier in the year, something easily forecasted in advance and yet no team in the relegation fight picked him up after Team Qhubeka folded as a WorldTour team. As Van Rensburg was not contracted to a UCI team at the time of scoring those points, by our interpretation of the UCI rules these points effectively 'vanish' and cannot be attributed to Lotto Soudal.

The intention of the transfer rule introduced by the UCI is to prevent teams from 'buying' points at the end of the season from riders who did not score those points whilst on the team. Rather unhelpfully, the UCI has only expressly contemplated the scenario where a rider transfers from one team to another in the first sentence of the rule, without specifying what happens to a rider's points if they had no UCI team when scoring UCI points.

The second sentence is more telling, which states that only points obtained from the date of transfer until the end of the season count to the new team. We consider a new signing to be a transfer as in reality there are no 'transfers' in professional cycling, old contracts are terminated and new ones are signed, so transfer really means "date of signing the contract with the new team." Perhaps Lotto-Soudal thought this was a loophole they could exploit and even received confirmation from the UCI that Van Rensburg's previously accumulated points would count to their total. If this is indeed the case then we would expect other teams in the fight who could be leapfrogged by Lotto-Soudal later in the year, like Israel, to put up a fight at CAS if their WorldTour licence is rejected based on the sporting criteria.

I was surprised he couldn't get a ride until now, he formed a solid part of the DDD lead out train and learnt this under cav and the HTC boys. He will become an asset in getting Caleb Ewan to the finish.

 

How often do uncontracted riders score big points?

It would make a lot of sense for the UCI to let this sit with the rider, it would add prestige to the races offering these points and allow huge incentive for a privateer to still race .

 

[bleedToWin]

1 hour ago, Shebeen said:

I was surprised he couldn't get a ride until now, he formed a solid part of the DDD lead out train and learnt this under cav and the HTC boys. He will become an asset in getting Caleb Ewan to the finish.

 

How often do uncontracted riders score big points?

It would make a lot of sense for the UCI to let this sit with the rider, it would add prestige to the races offering these points and allow huge incentive for a privateer to still race .

 

He actually in interviews that he avoided riding for a team now with the reasoning that his one and only objective is to pick up points at the two championships for a future WT employer. Not sure if him or anyone else knows if it will transfer.

He's a class riding and I'm super keen to see what he can do for Ewan!

[Sid the Sloth]

4 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

Lotto desperate in the relegation battle. I wonder if they got clarity on UCI points from free agents...

I pointed this out on a Whatsapp group yesterday too