After the 15th stage of the Giro d'Italia, the voices of the sprinters' teams were conspicuously loud - and unusually frustrated. Max Walscheid didn't mince his words: he criticised the role of the camera bikes, which in his opinion repeatedly influence events at decisive moments in the race. Shortly afterwards, his team-mate Jonathan Milan also struck a sobering note and drew a conclusion that left little room for optimism.
But there is another, deeper reason for the sprinters' pent-up disappointment - and it is much more serious than a single scene during the race. Because the real problem is structural: it is no longer a new phenomenon that sprinters are getting fewer and fewer real opportunities to take stage wins in the three Grand Tours. The profile is becoming more demanding, the number of clear sprint finishes is decreasing and the route in the final kilometres leaves a lot to be desired.
And when one of the few chances that an entire team has been working towards for months suddenly disappears or is significantly impaired, the sprinters are doubly affected. For them, it's not just a stage win that is at stake on days like these - but often the entire bill for a tour.
Fewer and fewer arrivals for sprinters
Right from the start of the Giro, it became clear how merciless this tour has become for the fast men. Even stages that are marked as flat in the road book are increasingly turning into undulating, energy-sapping stages. And that's not all: even supposedly unspectacular sections of the day, which are actually flat for long stretches, are often given a tough climb just before the finish - a detail that ruins the chances of many sprinters at the last moment and fuels their frustration even more.
The debate about camera bikes, which flared up again after stage 15, is ultimately just a symptom. There is a much bigger problem behind it: Tours are changing - and this development is increasingly at the expense of the sprinters. Pure final sprinters are increasingly disappearing from the peloton. Many of the fastest riders are no longer classic sprinters, but versatile all-rounders who can also get over hills, hold their own in different racing situations and, in the best case, even win classics. For many teams, a sprinter who has to hope for two or three stages is becoming a luxury that they are less and less willing to afford.
The big players are leading the way
This change is particularly noticeable among the top teams in the Grand Tours. Those who want to be at the front of the overall classification now usually leave a pure sprinter at home. This is because a real sprinter's block ties up valuable team-mates - riders who would then be missing in the high mountains when it comes to protecting the captain, positioning him in the finale or getting him safely through hectic phases of the race.
Teams such as UAE, Visma and Ineos have long shown how consistently this prioritisation works. Instead of a classic sprint platoon, they prefer to rely on additional mountain helpers, specialists for wind edge situations or versatile all-rounders who can take on several tasks simultaneously.
For the traditional sprinters, this has a clear consequence: even if their form is right, in many Grand Tours it is not their performance that fails, but their place in the squad. In teams that are uncompromisingly focussed on the overall classification, there is often simply no room for them.
Match ball with the organisers
Today's organisers are under enormous pressure to stage stages that constantly look like a spectacle: TV ratings have to be right, social media demands highlights and the public has become accustomed to permanent escalation. The consequence is visible - and it is written in black and white in the road books: stage profiles are getting tougher. Steeper ramps, more mountain stages, more technical final laps, twisty finales. And above all: less and less room for those "boring" flat sections over 200 kilometres.
However, these supposedly uneventful days used to be more than just compulsory exercises. They were the classic territory of the sprinters - and therefore a key part of the dramaturgy of a Grand Tour. Flat stages did not automatically mean boredom, but excitement on a different level. The fact that sprinters are increasingly disappearing from the peloton is therefore no coincidence and certainly not a whim of fashion. It is the result of a structural development - a sporting logic that rewards extreme profiles and systematically reduces classic sprint opportunities. If the organisers do not take countermeasures, this trend will continue: fewer pure sprinters, more all-rounders, fewer iconic sprint duels, but more unrest and improvisation in the few remaining finals.
At the end of the day, there is a fundamental question: does cycling really want to go in this direction - or does it risk losing one of its most traditional, reliably spectacular components? Because this is also part of the truth: a cleanly sprinted finale, perfectly approached, with two or three giants wheel to wheel right up to the line, is not boring cycling. It is cycling in its purest form.
Leon Weidner
Working student
