The diploma is not new. It is already compulsory for every sports director in first and second division teams. What changes in 2028 is the level: the Continental teams, and with them the French federal Conti teams. The sports director and the assistant sports director will both have to have passed the UCI exam.
Television shows the sports director now and then, arm out of the window, radio to his mouth. The assistant, far less. That is the one Rik watched.
At the front, I couldn’t tell you. At the back, I can tell you who does what in a team car. The first one talks, he has the radio, he has the race in his head. The second one has the bidons on the back seat, the wheels on the roof, and he knows at what height you hold out a musette so the rider doesn’t let go of the bars. With us, you learned that by doing it, getting the window wrong two or three times. Now there will be an exam, and that’s good, because the assistant is never thanked on the microphone. At least he’ll get a piece of paper. They call it the team car, but it’s an office too, with two seats in front and a cool box behind. Me, on Sundays, I drive the club’s one, no diploma, looking for the gruppetto out of the corner of my eye. I’m not concerned, and that’s fine, mind you.
The date is set: the 2028 season. The diploma is awarded after the exam organised by the UCI.
Rik, for his part, finished his coffee at the club bar once the podium had already been taken down, as he does every Sunday.
It’s true, we checked: DirectVelo.
