Discover how only a few countries continue to dominate the road cycling sport.
With the excellent results of Dutch cyclists in recent years, as a Dutch initiative cyclingcharts immediately rises to a nationalistic sense of pride. Year after year, the Netherlands again takes a prominent place on the global cycling classification. But how international is the cycling sport, and how can we match our sense of pride to a global level? We decided to delve into the data of UCI and Procyclingstats to investigate further.
The big 7
In fact, 7 countries have dominated sport for the past 15 years. These are, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Australia. Both in terms of the number of riders and the number of PCS points, these countries have dominated the past 15 years. Together these 7 countries are on average good for winning 85% of all PSC points, and they deliver …% of all pro riders. The location of this big 7 can be seen clearly in the animated Bubble Chart below in which PSC points and the number of riders of a country are displayed per year (2000 – 2015).
In the past 15 years, the big 7 has always found a place among the 9 best countries in the world ranking. But what is also noticeable is the rise of a number of newcomers and the demise of a number of renovated cycling countries.
The chart below shows that especially Colombia and Great Britain enter the top 10 of 2018. The reason for this is probably directly due to major national cycling heroes such as Neiro Kintana, Froome, Wiggins, Thomas.
The decline of larger cycling countries such as the USA, Switzerland and Russia can also be seen as a trend in the data of the past 15 years. The disappointing results of the USA will probably have to do with the doping scandals of the great heroes like Armstrong.
Newcomers
Looking at the international aspect of sport, we see that there are now many more professional cyclists today than 15 years ago. in 2005 there were still…. where I delivered 2018 … country pro riders. The following countries have provided professional riders to the UCI for the first 15 years. This indicates a somewhat more popular and global sport. Even though the performance of these new cycling countries is not yet worth mentioning.
Proteams
Even if we look at the map below of where the professional teams are located, it is striking that almost every country has at least 1 pro cycling team.
Conclusion
International cycling is a growing global sport. More and more countries are appearing on the international stage. However, the sport remains dominated by the big 7 that by far deliver the most riders and win PSC points. The chart below also shows how the larger cycling countries continue to dominate the sport.
We fear that in countries outside these cycling powers, the sport is not very well known, and that it will also be a long time before international cycling heroes from Asia or Africa come to the front.