Cycling Diplomacy Undemocratic Regimes and Professional Road Cycling Teams Sponsorship

Due to the financial situation in the professional road peloton, many cycling teams struggle to find their sponsors. This situation is an opportunity for undemocratic politicians to promote their countries via cycling. Thus, some of them decided to create and support their own cycling teams. Generally, four WorldTour teams supported by undemocratic regimes and their governments have existed in professional cycling history. This book focuses on all of them; it reflects the existence of the Kazakh Astana Pro Team, the Russian Team Katusha (supported by the Russian government until the end of the 2015 season), the Bahrain Victorious (formerly called Bahrain Merida and Bahrain McLaren) or the UAE Team Emirates and the way they are/were used as sports diplomacy instruments.