Although a ballot is fair and all, must be frustrating for riders who did want to race and are capable of being in the pack but miss out on places to people wanting to ride within themselves or just use it as an excuse for an adventure to cycle across Europe.
I'm pretty sure they let all the people with a chance of winning/top 10 in regardless. I'm guessing around half of the places are done on random ballot
It was about 2x oversubscribed this year. There was a ballot for places.