User:Green-eyed girl/Style guide/One day race

For articles on a one day race, the following style guidelines should apply. Generally speaking, articles on contemporary one day races and historic races can follow the same guidelines, as the amount of information available on them should be pretty much the same. Notable one day races include Olympic road races, world championships, national championships (deemed notable enough for their own article, we probably don't need to write anything at all on national championships for very small nations), spring classics, and other races not necessarily deemed "classics" but notable enough for articles.

This guideline is not meant to cover mountain bike or cyclo-cross events, though many of its principles should still apply, and if users more familiar with those disciplines of cycling are so inclined, we may be well suited to have guidelines written to specifically cover them. This guideline is probably suitable for standalone time trial events, as the only difference would be the description of the actual race.

Lead

Identify the race, where and when it was run, and the winner. Briefly summarize the course. Very sparing detail of the race itself should be given in the lead; certainly, give enough to satisfy WP:LEAD and briefly summarize the event, but any detailed descriptions of what took place should happen later on.

Preview

Most one day races will have a fair amount of speculation in reliable sources as to what will take place during the event, and who will emerge with the victory. Discuss which riders were seen as favorites entering the event, and why. This section is not requisite - there is no guarantee that reliable sources will preview a one day race in any depth, and if they don't, we certainly can't write anything that would violate WP:NOR.

Teams/Qualification

If the race is one contested by trade teams, list the teams invited. Nations should not be listed in races not contested by trade teams, because it is not really those nations which are in the race, but individual cyclists, some of whom may not have even a single countryman/teammate in the race. If possible, for those races, give a summary of how riders qualified for the race.

Course

Some space should be devoted to a description of the course, unless the race uses the same course every year. Describe the different surfaces, if any, over which the course passes, and any major landmarks along the route.

Race overview (this needs to be discussed)

Quite obviously, the race itself needs to be described. This can and should go into greater detail than the stage recaps on articles from multi day Tours. We need to discuss specifics.

Results

This one's purely a question: Do we list all finishers and withdrawals from a race? This was done on Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race, our Project's only FA. Do we do this only on races for which riders had to qualify (Olympics, world championships) and not for races contested by trade teams? What do we then do for races contested by trade teams? Just the top ten like we might for a stage in a stage race? Just the full finishers but not the withdrawals?

Navboxes

Most one day races have navigation boxes associated with them, and there are also other templates like {{2008 UCI ProTour}} that can be used for additional context.