The prize money for last year’s Tour of Britain has still not been settled nearly a year after the race was won by Wout van Aert, Cycling Weekly understands.
Van Aert and his team, Visma-Lease a Bike, dominated last year’s race - winning five stages and the overall title - but are still without the prize money for their efforts almost 12 months later. Visma sprinter Olav Kooij won four of the team’s five-stage haul alone.
Sources confirmed this to Cycling Weekly this week, but the prize money situation is not believed to be the sole reason for the team’s absence from the race this year.
Ineos Grenadiers and Soudal Quick-Step were two of four WorldTour teams recently confirmed for the race, but the Dutch giants were notably absent, after riding four of the last five editions.
Prize money for the race was one of a long list of financial debts owed by the former race promoter, SweetSpot, at the time of the firm’s liquidation in January. The company had endured months of financial turbulence which resulted in British Cycling removing the Tour of Britain race licence from the former promoter over an unpaid licence fee totalling £700,000.
British Cycling saved both of SweetSpot’s races, the Tour of Britain and Women’s Tour, in February, later rebranding both as the Lloyds Bank Tours of Britain after the bank were later announced as the national governing body’s new title sponsor.
Speaking in February, British Cycling CEO Jon Dutton committed to dealing with the prize money debt, describing it as one of many issues that the governing body had inherited from the former Tour of Britain promoter.
"We're aware of it," Dutton said. "We were recently made aware of it and it forms part of a number of legacy issues that we've inherited."
When contacted by Cycling Weekly this week to request an update on the outstanding prize money, a spokesperson for British Cycling confirmed that dialogue was ongoing regarding the situation with an aim of reaching a resolution with the UCI, the CPA rider’s union and other companies like the Dutch-based Cycling Service who handle prize money for a variety of teams, including Visma-Lease a Bike.
The spokesperson said: "We have been in regular communication with both the UCI and the CPA, who administer the payment of prize monies, over the prize money owed from the 2023 race.
"Whilst we accept no liability for the debts accrued by the Sweetspot Group, in good faith we have confirmed that we will honour all of the prize money payments from the 2023 race and have shared a payment plan with both the UCI and the CPA."
Full details of the payment plan remain unclear, but sources told Cycling Weekly that the length of the offered plan is between three and five years. It is understood that negotiations are set to continue ahead of this year’s race with the aim of reaching a resolution soon.
This year’s Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men is set to run between 3 and 8 September, with the start taking place in the Scottish borders.
