Greg van Avermaet has told Cyclingnews that he agrees with the idea of reducing team sizes to make racing more attractive. Accordin to the new Olympic champion, the new WorldTour calendar means that organizers have to accept this change.
The 2017 UCI WorldTour will take the peloton to more countries and continents. The expanded series will consist of 37 events, including 10 new additions (Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Tour of Qatar, Abu Dhabi Tour, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey, Eschborn-Frankfurt, Amgen Tour of California and Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic).
"If you see the WorldTour calendar, which will be so big next year, it might be good for all the teams because some of the teams only have 25 riders. It would be difficult to cover the whole programme with the WorldTour races. Maybe to split it up would not be a bad idea. For sure we have to try it once, and there are some opportunities in other races. Maybe not directly in the Tour de France but we can try in the Dauphine, Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico", van Avermaet said. "It would be nice to see how the peloton reacts and how the teams react to less numbers. Then you can make a conclusion after this."
The BMC leader proposed to reduce the number of riders in a three-week race to seven riders. "In a Grand Tour, you have to go to maybe seven riders," he said. "In a Grand Tour you have some crashes in the first week and some riders get sick, so you have to go maybe to seven and then in a one-day race you have to go six."
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