As a professional cyclist you dont get a nice jersey for winning Milan-San Remo. Or Paris-Roubaix. Or the Tour of Flanders. Victory in the Clsica de San Sebastin entitles you to wear a big black beret that looks like a giant floppy pancake for a humiliating moment. But there is a very special jersey that, once you win it at a one day event, it is yours for a year wherever you racethe Spring Classics, the Tour, or the Meiji-Jingu Outer Garden University Criterium. This jersey, is of course, the glorious rainbow-striped confection first donned by Alfredo Binda in 1927 and which has most recently adorned Flashy Entertainer Julian Alaphilipe for the Elite Men and Italy’s Elisa Balsamo for the Elite Women. Its fascinating history is the subject of Chasing the Rainbow: The Story of Road Cyclings World Championships by British author Giles Belbin.Oddly enough, the idea of a Road World Championship was a long time in development. The UCI, created in 1900 following dissatisfaction over a British-led sanctioning organization, the ICI, did not get around to it until 1921, and even then it was strictly a time trial for amateurs only. It was felt that professionals did not really need this kind of event. Six years after the start of the amateur program, pros took to the race at the Nurbrgring auto racing circuit in a joint pro/amateur event, which seems weird in retrospect. The UCI came to its senses and the next year professionals and amateurs raced separately.Marcel…
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