Is it time for change, or time for pasture for some racers? Photo Simeon Patience

Professional sport is a strange beast. We love to watch the big game or big race, and many of us watch the small games and small races too, no matter how meaningless they might be in the bigger picture of television rights and sponsorship and advertising revenue. If it’s not rating, it doesn’t rate a mention in many cases. Because professional sport isn’t about the athletes or the competition, and if you believe it is then it has done its job; kept you from thinking about important stuff. Turn on, tune in, zone out.

The obscene amounts of money that sporting clubs or franchises have at their disposal makes a mockery of basic human rights; that one person who can throw/catch/hit/kick/run with a ball of some shape and size should accrue them enough wealth to eradicate the debt, hunger and homelessness of probably more than one nation isn’t just incredible, it’s absurd. And it’s working; the majority of hardcore sports fans might not have any interest in or knowledge of politics or the state of the environment, but sure as hell they’ll have an opinion on it. The opinion they have been told to believe and is right because they saw it on the 6 o’clock news. The same news owned by the same people who own the sporting teams, coincidentally. Seems almost ridiculous doesn’t it!

The various disciplines of cycling also vary in the amount of media coverage they receive, but compared to the mainstream sports it’s virtually non-existent. The closest to big business is road racing, with the sponsor base made up of companies from outside of cycling, but with some vested interests from some organisations playing a role in the end game of commercialisation and all-encompassing control and power over the masses. Team Sky, the most dominant team on the road, is owned by News Corp, which of course is one Mr Murdoch, who probably couldn’t give a fuck about Chris Froome’s V02 max, but is very interested in sending out a particular message through the TV subscriptions that Froome and Co help sell. “This is what we’re telling you, so you have to believe it.” Like good little zombies, they lap it up.

Mountain biking hasn’t been indoctrinated into the brain-deadening scheme as yet, and may remain too niche or small to ever attract the big money it needs to placate the masses. That’s what wrestling is for. (Don’t laugh, the connections between pro wrestling company owners and the global ruling elite are hidden in plain sight.) So it remains a spectator sport for those who actually ride and/or race themselves, unlike wrestling, or motorsport, football or tennis where the majority of fans don’t partake in the sport/s they follow. And with any professional sport, there will always be a dominant force or someone or some team that will be that much more professional than their competitors, and they will dominate. Which makes for a less-than-entertaining spectacle if the contest isn’t one. It’s not often that an All Blacks fan watches a game wondering if they will win or that the opposition has the psychological advantage. It’s not if they’ll win, but by how much.

The same sort of domination is present in downhill racing right now, with Rachel Atherton winning her second straight World Cup/World Champs double and stringing together 15 wins along the way. That is pure domination. It’s rare that her competitors get within a few seconds of her, so most races are somewhat a foregone conclusion. Rachel knows it, her rivals know it, the fans know it. She is the ABs of downhill. Which poses the question, is she bored with it? Her rivals most certainly are, and fans must be wondering how long she will continue in a sport that is surely presenting less challenges the longer her career goes. No-one wants to be bored at work, no matter how good they are at it, there needs to be a new challenge.

Rachel, for the good of the sport and herself, should retire from DH and cross over to where old or bored downhillers go for a second bite; enduro. There’s no doubt she has the skills and speed, so adding the extra fitness/endurance aspect to her racing might be the challenge she needs. It would bring more interest to both enduro and DH, from seeing how she stacks up against the current enduro specialists, and to also restore the unpredictability to women’s downhill.

Maybe the UCI needs to bring in a Rachel clause to their rules, that if anyone isn’t beaten for a whole season then they have to swap over to another discipline. Imagine Gwin having to race Paris-Roubaix, Schurter doing track sprints or Froome gating up in a full face at Fort Bill while Claudio giggles at his lack of skills on the course preview video. Ok, maybe not. But when it comes to Ms Atherton, there must be a point when it becomes apparent that a new challenge is needed, and she’ll follow the likes of Tracy, Cecile, Anne-Caro and Anneke across to the other side. For her own sanity, if not ours.