Recently established CT team Aviva Cycling will make its debut in the World Tour on the 5th of May 2018 after receiving a wild card for the University of Lincoln GP. It will be our only outing to the top level of cycling this year. You will be able to support our team in all three races on British soil, the Lincoln GP in May, the London-Surrey Classic on the 4th of August as well as the Tour of Britain starting on the 7th of September.
Expect an update with the full race calendar of our maiden season in the ICL within the next week.
CCC is measuring to start in some WT races for the first time...
If there is something that nobody expected, it is probably that. The officials of the CCC are considering to take part in some World Tour races next season. During the first two years of the team's activity, the riders raced only in CT.1 and CT.2 categories. The plans for the upcoming season assume potential starts in the first WT races. We have no confirmation about specific names of those races, but foreign media informs about the Ardennes classics and several stage races. The team also intends to take part in the World TTT Championships.
Including first ever Grand Tour?
We still do not have official information, but there is a high probability that CCC will start for the first time ever in the Grand Tour. There are some speculations that in connection with the Italian partnership it may be the Italian Giro. Official information about wild cards will be given to public opinion in the coming days.
Team management wants to get rid of an Italian partnership?
After two years of cooperation with the Italian partner, the team's management wants to change it. Reportedly, the management wants to withdraw from cooperation. Speculation says that CCC intends to enter the South American market. Therefore, some Colombian cyclists were employed in recent months. And there is a good chance that the third season will be the last with the Italian partnership. It is possible that from the next season the Italian riders riding in the CCC colors will have to look for another employer.
Official roster for 2018
After the last few transfers, we already know the full squad for the 2018 season:
Today the ICLUCI made public the WC wildcard that every CT team would receive this season - along with the full season calendar, and we are glad to anounce that Wilier Triestina has been granted every WT race they asked for.
The team desire was to compete in all Italian WT races except Giro. It would have nice to ride our first GT in Italy, but we wouldn't been able to send a strong team there.
The first WT race of the season will Strade Bianche, a hilly classic where Moreno Moser, the team star, will lead the team. Only a couple of weeks later, the team will go to Milano to compete in our first ever Monument classic. The team will surely be led by our sprinter Matteo Pelucchi. It's uncertain whether or not Moreno Moser will attend this race, with another race clashing which fits Moreno perfectly. In April we will compete in 4 one-day WT races. The first one in Italy, Trofeo Campania, where Fernando Gaviria will try to get a decent result. But after this race, the Ardennes come, with Moreno Moser leading the team in all three Ardennes Classics.
We won't be competing in WT level until October, where again Moreno Moser will lead our squad in the final Monument of the season, Il Lombardia
The full calendar of the team will be anounced later
No statement will be made yet regarding which rider will ride where until every team has submitted their race planning in order not to give them an advantage.
An interview with the manager of the Aviva Cycling team
Aviva team manager Ripley finally found the time to sit down for a lengthy interview with a major publication, here's the transcript.
Q: Congratulations on the new job! How did that come about?
A: Thank you. Well, I've been involved in or around cycling most of my life and recently two unlikely things occurred: First I happen to hear that Aviva is looking into sports sponsoring and then an old friend, an ICL manager, contacted me out of the blue telling me a license for the Continental Tour is available and the season start isn't far away. A few meetings later, Aviva Cycling Team was born.
Q: But pretty daunting, right?
A: Oh yeah, absolutely. There was a lot I didn't know about the ICL and little time to learn.
Q: How long did it take to put the team together?
A: Surprisingly, not that long. I had told myself this bout has several rounds, it will take some time, no worries, no pressure. But then we had most of our team together after just one round.
Q: How did that happen?
A: We decided to focus on realistic targets, not the guys every team would love to have. Still, we had competition for all our captains, Fuglsang, Stannard, Poels, Schorn, Denifl, Monsalve, even Bibby and Minguiz. We painstakingly decided for every rider how much more we could offer him and to our surprise, all our bids were successful.
Q: And your wage budget was pretty much depleted?
A: Not quite. We were happy to find we had enough money to buy Dowsett from Bunzl, adding another British rider to our squad, a time trial specialist at that, a role that needed to be filled. We knew from the start that we would need to assemble an international team, the demand for British riders is very healthy. But we do have Stannard and Dowsett and believe they will be able to show themselves this season.
Q: A word about the other Brits on your team?
A: Lowsley-Williams is the best British climber we have, you will see him supporting Fuglsang and Poels in the mountains. Mark Christian's speciality are the cobbles, he'll be protecting Stannard. Ian Bibby is equally strong up short and longer climbs, great versatility, he'll feature in very different races. Birch will mostly be part of a lead-out train for Schorn while McCluskey is the youngest rider on our team, for him it'll be a season of learning the ropes. Along with his manager. [laughs]
Q: What's your overall assessment of your squad?
A: Of course we could have done better, but I'm sure we could have done worse, too. Tell you the truth, we were close to offering Chris Froome a minimum wage bid in the first round. But we decided it'd be a joke and it'd look unprofessional. And he would have had to accept the offer, imagine that! That aside, we have Fuglsang as our captain, he has a stellar track record leading CT teams, I'd say that's pretty damn good. And Poels, who is nearly his equal. Stannard should thrive on the cobblestones and we are optimistic about Valgren, too. Schorn might make it into smaller group sprints in more hilly terrain. And we have good support for all terrains. So I'm pleased, definitely.
Q: Next came the race selection, what was that like?
A: Oh, a bit of a nightmare, so many races to choose from. And you needed a pretty good idea already of the teams you'd send to each race and not select too few or too many for your captains, and check all the overlaps. I didn't fully succeed, as I'd realise later, but this being the first season, it went better than expected.
Q: And finally the actual rider selection. Did you make any changes to your plans?
A: Plenty. I took a closer look at the courses and shifted the focus on several of them. And each rider is only alloted a certain number of race days so compromises needed to be made. I believe we are the team we the fewest available race days in the ICL and we booked slightly more than the recommended 175 race days so we're squeezing nearly every race day we have out of the squad. But again, I'm happy, we are sending competitive teams to nearly all races.
Q: What kind of results are you looking for?
A: We would love to see top 10 results with some consistency. One a month, maybe two, depending on the schedule. Any win would be a huge success, any podium would be great... we want to compete, we'd love to see our jersey near the front after a selection has been made. But we have to remain realistic, in every terrain there are better riders around and so we cannot expect to cross the line first. Everybody is encouraged to try, of course.
Going into the new season, Eurosport ES has taken a look at the new prospect coming from Spain. Long rumoured, Jesús Herrada is expected to majorily step up his performances since the departure of Liberty's idol Contador.
What is behind the recent hype of Spain's 28 year old new hope? One may argue that with the decline of Contador looming, Spain is desperate for new stage racing talent and now just about heralds anyone as a potential Grand Tour winner. The young hopeful likes of Pulido are not there yet, whilst other riders such as Landa, Verona and Fernandenz have failed to progess significantly in the past years.
Jesus Herrada has taken a big step up in this off-season. Part of it, so the manager, "that Jesus has found the winning legs last year. He narrowly won Tour de Suisse and later rode to victory in Annecy". In the Tour, Herrada was a loyal lieutnant to Contador's bid to win the Tour, however the team's hopes fell short when Contador crashed on the attack in a downhill and lost major time in the past days. Herrada remained loyal to the bone throughout.
Professional Wins:
5
Jerseys Won:
1
Lifetime Score:
2600
Professional Wins:
1
2015
WT.2
Tour of Toowoomba
S05
1
2017
A.2
Tour de Suisse
S06
1
2017
A.2
Tour de Suisse
S08
1
2017
A.2
Tour de Suisse
Total
1
2017
WT.1
Course du Lac d'Annecy
Total
With just 5 wins to his tally, Herrada is now eager to make 2018 his year to shine. With shared captaincy, Liberty Seguros' new arrival Betancur is expected to majorly focus on hilly races and skip the Grand Tours altogether after his bid in the Vuelta wasn't so successful as wished. Herrada in turn lays his focus on the Grand Tours, however it is not decided yet, if he targets one or two. It is however almost guaranteed that Herrada will be present at the Vuelta a Espana.
"I think the Tour de Suisse victory really showed me that I can compete on a high level. I have had hopes that I perhaps could achieve a Top 10 whilst also helping Alberto, but the Tour was severe disappointment in that regard. Gladly I could celebrate again at the Course du Lac d'Annecy, which a great boost to my morale, and the signal that I could also win big races on the World Tour level".
WT
CT
U23
PR
2014
Fiskars Cycling
35(385Pts.)
111(385Pts.)
2015
Liberty Seguros - Würth
81(339Pts.)
154(339Pts.)
2016
Illes Balears
90(311Pts.)
81(281Pts.)
93(592Pts.)
2017
Illes Balears
41(877Pts.)
55(407Pts.)
39(1284Pts.)
First riding under Fiskars Cycling, Herrada was transfered in 2015 to Liberty Seguros in turn for Tanel Kangert. The Spaniard has since then slowly progressed, finishing the Prestige Ranking in 2017 at 39th. His highest position.
Whilst other riders enjoyed successs naturally, Jesus Herrada certainly had to wait for his moment to shine. However, the Spaniard has majorly improved his climbing and is expected to be competitive for the next 5 years the least.
GTs
2014
2015
2016
2017
Giro d'Italia
13
Tour de France
12
17
Vuelta a España
66
His past experiences in the Grand Tours are far from success stories. In fact,
HErrada is yet to Top 10 one of the three big Grand Tours. Whilst the Giro d'Italia in 2015 may have come to early, alongside Carlos Verona he came 13th and missed out on his best chance to Top 10, his Tour campaigns have been previously in the service of Contador.
The lack of experience in Grand Tour riding certainly is a major flaw for the young Spaniard, and with the outlook on major new competition from Aru, Bardet, Barguil and Quintana for the upcoming years, Herrada refuses to be named as any of the favourites. "Truth is, I am still very much an outsider. I hope I can make a mark this season, and improve continuously from there on out".
His goals are naturally aligned to the team's hopes. Whereas in the past anything but a Grand Tour win was out of question, with riders such as Contador and Rodriguez a logical assumption, the team has far lower hopes. "A Grand Tour podium would be a huge step forward for him", the manager confidently expresses and adds: "We think he certainly able to do that, and will challenge for the win in the next year or two."
With the decline of the previous spanish era, Spain certainly has many years to look forward to Herrada as a new champion for the iberians. However, if the goal of the now begun transition of the team into a new era with Herrada at its front, is crowned with success, is the real worry of the manager.
The officials have announced the wild cards for the upcoming ICL season. Most important thing is that CCC will finally start in some World Tour races. We have a confirmation that hilly specialist Diego Ulissi will be team leader for the Ardennes Classics: Amstel Gold Race, La Fleche Wallonne & Liege - Bastogne - Liege. The biggest surprise is that CCC will start for the first time in the Grand Tour: Giro d'Italia. We don't have an official news about team members that will ride in Italy. But... Team management confirmed that all four Colombian members of the team will start in that race: Chamorro, Anacona, Ochoa and Rivera. We are going to hunt for the stage wins. Other WT races with participation of team CCC are: Vuelta a Tachira, Tour of Mount Fuji, Course du Lac d'Annecy & World TTT Championships. We will send our best time-trialists for that very prestigious race. With a continental races, team decided to take part mostly in the CT.1 category races. Is it the time for the first Polish team in the World Tour next year?
Alberto Contador has been one of the most dominant riders in the history of ICL and has been the iconic face of the Illes Balears team since the foundation of the team. But in one of the most stunning transfers and arguably the biggest trade in the history of cycling Illes Balears traded him to Prestige Ranking winner CarbonSports in return for puncheur Carlos Betancur.
GTs
2014
2015
2016
2017
Giro d'Italia
1
4
Tour de France
3
2
3
16
Vuelta a España
1
Monuments
2014
2015
2016
2017
Milano - San Remo
Ronde van Vlaanderen
Paris - Roubaix
Liège - Bastogne - Liège
1
4
1
Il Lombardia
World Championships
12
1
81
16
World ITT Championships
10
4
12
25
Alberto Contador has won basically everything. He was World Champion, won the Individual Prestige and WT Rankings, won monuments and two of the three GTs.
Highlights 2018:
***** Win Tour de France
**** Vuelta a Espana
*** Giro Il Lombardia
** PT Ranking
* Liege - Bastogne - Liege
Completing the career GT triple is the focus for this year's season. Win the Tour de France is the one race he still needs to win and this is Alberto's most important goal for the season.
Lufthansa Racing Team enter their first year as a World Tour team in 2018. As always, the biggest allure of the World Tour calendar are the Grand Tours. The team today confirmed their Grand Tour line-ups in an official communication to the ICLUCI. The riders to lead our charge in the Grand tours will be Richie Porte and Benat Intxausti. The former will lead the line in two Grand Tours while the latter leads in the other.
While picking races for each rider, the deciding factor was the amount of TT kilometers in each race. The Giro has the least among the GTs and automatically dropped to lowest priority for Porte. The explanation for the move is simple, Porte is not the strongest climber in the division but he is among the best in Time Trials among his GC rivals. He is also our best bet for a high GC finish in a GT and his choices were given priority. By default, Intxausti leads in the Giro. A strong mountain support cast will accompany our leaders in each Grand Tour.
Degenkolb will accompany Intxausti in the Giro, in search of stage wins. This is the only GT that our premier sprinter will ride in. Arndt will be our lead sprinter for the Tour and Bauhaus will play that role in the Vuelta.
Svendsen is our Time Trial captain, and will ride in all three Grand Tours. This year's Grand Tour profiles have an increased amount of TT kilometers, and we hope to take full advantage of this. It helps that both our GC leaders are good against the clock.
Q: You were very inactive on the transfermarker, how will this affect your season?
A: We were very unlucky when it came to timing. As you know, a very harsh deadline for the Free Agents saw us miss out on some great riders. The manager was also climbing the Pyramids when the transfer season started. He's been a bit of a letdown really, but we decided to give him another chance. Either way, there's no denying our transfer season was really bad
Q: Let's talk about Guillaume Van Keirsbulck then, can he repeat his World Cup win?
A: Definitely. He has two goals this year, repeating his WC win and also winning a monument. He got even better than last year, so it's definitely possible. As you remember, he dominated the cobbles, but couldn't finish it in Ronde and Roubaix. We hope he can make it this year.
Q: And your other superstar, Danny van Poppel, what are his goals?
A: Pretty much the same as last year. We still believe he can win San Remo, but it's a hard race to win. We also send him back to Le Tour after he won a few stages and the point jersey last year.
Q: Who will lead the team in the Grand Tours?
A: Tim Wellens goes to the Giro again, Marc Goos does the Tour/Vuelta double. We believe both riders are capable of getting a top 10 result.
Q: The dev team looks weaker compared to other years, what are your thoughts on that subject?
A: As I said before, the offseason wasn't what we hoped for. We also saw guys like Pizarro, Gonzalez and Aleman move to the main team. This year our main rider will be Jens Dumont. He has an incredible future ahead of him and we hope we can see glimpses of it this year already.
Q:Who will be the team to beat this year?
CarbonSports, no question about it.
Just a few weeks into the new season, and the first rumour are already coming up: Apparently Liberty Seguros new arrival, Carlos Betancur, is still in Colombia, whereas most of the team has met in training camp.
According to an anonymous source, the enfant terrible of cycling & mcdonald's has decided to prolong his holiday in Colombia, enjoy his mama's great meals and make party a la colombia. The source has also claimed that the team's manager is particularly angry at this lack of competitive and professional behaviour. "We are not used to this standard", he exclaimed and said that it is no surprise that Bananito always switches teams. "I hope that CarbonSports didn't play a trick on us here.."
Still, the team's official response is that Betancur is training already with a professional coach in Colombia to benefit of the altitude. In a second interview, Jesus Herrada meanwhile has confirmed that he will ride the Tour-Vuelta combo, challenging in both his idol Alberto Contador. Meanwhile it is confirmed that Carlos Betancur will be solely focusing on stage races and classics this season.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Marcel Kittel has been THE face of THE sprinting team during the entire ICL history. He remains our lead sprinter and will once again have a super talented leadout train for him.
Giro d'Italia
Tour de France
Vuelta a Espana
Starts
2
2
2
Stages
9
5
5
Point Jerseys
2
1
2
2014
2015
2016
2017
Palm Classic
1
1
1
11
Milano San Remo
3
1
Paris - Tours
3
4
4
Quebec Sprint Challenge
4
5
3
5
Ster ZLM Tour
9
3
Vattenfall Cyclassics
8
3
2
Kittel has been the most dominant in GTs so far. He participated twice in each of the GTs and won a combined 19 stage wins and 5 point jerseys. He also won MSR last season and three times the season opening Palm Classic. His full palamares includes 46 professional wins and 11 won jerseys.
The season highlight for Marcel Kittel is the Giro d'Italia. He's the focus point of our team selection and we will try everything to get him into the right position to win. He will also ride the Vuelta a Espana again but he will have to share leadership with Alberto Contador for that GT.
Full Schedule:
Race
Country
Start
End
St.
Role
Palm Classic
UAE
111
111
1
Leader
Ster ZLM Tour
Netherlands
406
410
5
Leader
Giro d'Italia
Italy
509
529
21
Leader
Vattenfall Cyclassics
Germany
822
822
1
Leader
Vuelta a España
Spain
901
921
21
Co-Leader
Quebec Sprint Challenge
Canada
923
923
1
Leader
Paris - Tours
France
1005
1005
1
Leader
Marcel Kittel will ride a rather small number of races but with the exception of the Vuelta a Espana he will be the out and out leader in every single one of them. A team fully focussed on delivering him to the line will feature in those races with Caleb Ewan and Willy Willwohl as his designated leadout throughout the season. His entire schedule will be on the WT circuit as he will skip prestigious CT events like World Ports Classics which is one of his manager's favourite races.
@Shonak: Herrada vs Contador in both GTs? Gotta love a good master vs apprentice story
Bananito? CarbonSport keeps silence
A recent announcement of Alberto Contador's race schedule was overshadowed by claims that CarbonSports pulled a trick on Liberty Seguros as Liberty's new signing Carlos Betancur missed the first training camp and a team official dared to publicly questioning Betancur's competitive and professional behaviour.
Asked about these claims CarbonSports' manager explained that CarbonSports has a very high standard of professionalism for their riders and expect each rider to contribute to that. "There is no room for unprofessional riders in the CarbonSports squad". He declined to answer a question whether that had been a problem with Betancur ("I don't talk bad about past riders so can we please talk about our current team" ) before presenting Marcel Kittel's race schedule for the 2018 season.
The Monuments are the most prestigious one day classic races on the World Tour calendar. The team we have built are tuned to do well in these races. John Degenkolb, Greg Van Avermaet, Benat Intxausti and Richie Porte will be the team leaders in the Monuments.
In Milan - San Remo, both Degenkolb and Van Avermaet will be co-leaders. This is a race which has always been open to wins by either punchers or sprinters, and we wanted to cover all bases. Vanbilsen and Arndt will be the chief lead-outs/domestiques. Vermote rides to keep the pace high on the 'boring' early parts of the race.
Ronde van Vlaanderen, the first of the cobbled Monuments, once again sees both Degenkolb and Van Avermaet leading the team. We have been able to build a strong cobbles squad and hope to take full advantage of that. Vanbilsen, Arndt and Honigh are the key domestiques for this one.
No change in the leadership when we head to Paris - Roubaix. Degenkolb leads the team in the last of three Monuments for the year, with Van Avermaet in tow. This is one race we are particularly looking forward to, given Degenkolb's sprinting capabilities when the field reaches the velodrome in Roubaix. Once again, it is Vanbilsen, Arndt and Honigh as the men to put our leaders into a strong position before the push for the line.
At Liege - Bastogne - Liege, Van Avermaet shares leadership duties with Intxausti. This will be the fourth and last Monument of the season for the Belgian. We are not a strong force when it comes to punchers, but we do have decent depth. We hope to use that here as Frank and Parra also start. Hopefully, Ardennes week will end on a happy note for us.
In what could become the showdown of the premier climbers this season, Richie Porte will lead the team in the last Monument of the year - Il Lombardia. A strong support cast of Intxausti, Frank, Brambilla and Mejiers hopes to help the Australian achieve a good result in what will be his last big race at full strength.
Breaking News: Bananito spotted in Grupo-Argos HQ in Medellin?
Quick news from Colombia. Paparrazzi have figured out the uncomparable figure of cycling diva Carlos Betancur in Medellin, close to the department of sports of Grupo Argos-Qualas main title sponsor. Rumour has it that they had some talks over the future of Colombian cycling and changes that may or may not determine the future of Grupo Argos and potentially also Carlos Betancur.
Furthermore he's been found having empanadas for lunch with Rigoberto Uran and the Quintana brother at Cayetano Sarmiento's place near Medellin. It is reported however, that contrarily to the others he did not join a training ride of the riders of the Colombian Equipo.
Grupo Argos director of performance, the croatian Kristijan Brajkovic, declined any talks with Carlos Bentacur: "Of course we respect the contract of Betancur at Liberty Seguros. In fact, we want to congratulate our spanish friends for acquiring him this offseason. It doesn't change the fact though, that a rider like Betancur is always going to be interesting for a colombian squad."
The captain of the team, Nairo Quintana, was confronted with this case on a press conference of Grupo Argos - Quala as well. He released the following statement: "Carlitos is my friend. I'd like to ride with him once together on the same team. Before the offseason we had some talks with the officials; and I adviced them to work on getting him into the team. And I've heard they put in some efforts, not only this year but also the year before when I joined the project. The best Colombian riders belong into the best Colombian team."
After these interesting statements Mr. Brajkovic was again asked to comment on those statements regarding the chase of Betancur. "Yes, that is true. He has been on top of our acquiring block for two years straight. Let's see what the future offers."
2018 Veranclassic - AGO
