FiT Publishing

Doping seems to be well organized and inherent in the system of professional cycling. This paper provides a theoretical approach, by using a multi-task (training and doping) principal-agent (team manager and cyclist) model, to illustrate the information asymmetry and conflicting objectives between both actors. Three settings are used to represent different situations in which the fight against doping takes place with varying intensity. The comparison of the equilibria in each setting reveals the influence of the fight against doping on the team members’ behavior. The analysis shows that...Read more

This paper analyzes the changes induced by the newly introduced UCI Pro Tour on the behavior of racing teams. We develop an oligopolistic model starting from the well-known Cournot framework to analyze why the UCI Pro Tour fails to reach its primary aim, namely to increase overall competition among professional cycling teams. In particular we show that the pattern of non-competitive behavior displayed by race teams is the result of a poorly designed Pro Tour licensing assignment procedure. Empirical findings confirm that teams put forth low effort in a high percentage of tour events,...Read more