Here you can see our 5 goals given to us. They are not necessarily the most important goals of the season, but the sponsor wants them done good. All of the are quite easy actaully, given Ronde being the hardest one and most important at the same time, but still with right tactics everything is possible
Top 5 Tirreno-Adriatico
Win Paris - Nice
Win Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
Win Gent - Wevegelem
Win Ronde van Vlaanderen
Here you can see our goals for this season. Some of them are quite challenging to get, but all of them are possible and very realistic, so we are very happy sponsors kept their expectations at that realistic level. So our goal is to reach 90% of those goals, should be a nice challenging.
We'll give you more infor on the goals in the 'News' Update later in the month and a bigger update in March where first big races of cycling calender begin.
One of the beat know and respected riders in the peleton. He endured tough patch of injuries and bad luck, but this year he's coming back stronger than ever. His 2012 seasons is formed around two parts. 1st being the Cobble Classics. It's time for Boonen to win a cobble monument and this is his goal this year. 2nd half of the year will be concentrated about the Tour, Boonen's first target is to make it to Paris with at least one stage win.
Goals :
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad .:. Win
Gent - Wevelgem .:. Win
Paris - Roubaix .:. Win
Tour de France - Stage Win
Tour de France - Fight for Points Jersey
Tony Martin
Tony comes to OPQS after his previous team, HTC folded last year. He brings immense stage race potential we missed in previous years. He's the best time-trialer in the world. With that strength in mind Tony will target one -week races with a time trial. Paris Nice and Tour of Romandie being early goals.
In 2nd part of the season Tony will challenge for the GC in Tour as a co - leader. He won't be asked to do any lead-outs and will preserve energy for mountains. At the end of season Tony will peak once again to crush the rivals once again in the World Time Trial Championships in Netherlands.
Paris-Nice .:. Podium
Volta a Catalunya .:. Podium
Tour de France .:. Win ITT
Tour de France - Fight for Overall GC
World Championships .:. Win ITT
Sylvain Chavanel
After a sensational season last year Sylvain will come back stronger than ever. He's a great all – rounder and he’ll try to win different types of races this year. His first big goal this year will be Tirreno which he’ll use to prepare for Milano San-Remo, where he will most likely be our leader.
Following from MSR he will begin his Classics campaign, he’ll ride both Cobbled and Ardennes Classics. On Cobbles he’ll be luxury domestique to Boonen, but will be given more free role at Ronde after last year success. While mostly domestique in cobbled races he’ll lead our team in Ardennes as our strongest hilly rider.
He’ll try to defend his National Jersey later in the year and finish off with a big goal in France. He’ll be essential in our lead outs and will go into many breaks hoping for a majestic victory, and maybe even taking yellow for a few days.
Goals :
Tirreno Adriatico .:. Top 10
Milano San - Remo .:. Podium
Ronde van Vlaanderen .:. Win
Liège–Bastogne–Liège .:. Top 10
Tour de France .:. Stage Win
Levi Leipheimer
Levi is another new comer to the team. Adding vast amount of experience and potential in Grand Tour’s and one week stage races. He’ll have relatively easy spring, with his first big goal coming only in May. After coming 2nd last year to Chris Horner, Levi will try to take the crown away from him and win Tour of California once again.
In preparation towards Tour de France, he’ll also try to defend his win in Tour de Suisse. He’ll also try to win American ITT National Championship as well as try to win the Road Race. He’ll come to Tour in a good shape where he will co-lead our team with Tony Martin. AS the race plays out we’ll decide who will become our leader.
Peter is a new addition to the squad, and one of our most brightest talents in our team. He proved he has the Grand Tour pedigree and will end our team in two Grand Tours this year. He’ll have relatively easy start to the season to prepare best for the two GT’s. He’ll ride the Ardennes Classics as the co-leader and will lead our team in Tour de Romandie, before going to the Giro.
He’ll then possible ride Dauphine if he keeps his good form from Giro, but will rest most of June and July concentrating on his second goal of Vuelta, trying to repeat his success from 2010.
Gerald Ciolek
After few tough seasons for the German, overshadowed by his old teammate – Mark Cavendish, Gerald is back. His first challenge is to build up his confidence and get back to winning ways. He’ll have the chance to do so at Tour Down Under. He’ll lead us in other small classics and stage races as our main sprinter, including Tirreno and Tour of California. He’ll be our last lead out man for Boonen at the Tour, and will play vital role as his vast acceleration can give us the advantage we need to beat others like Cavendish or Grepiel.
Kevin De Weert
Kevin got our best Grand Tour result last year at the Tour. This time he’ll return to the Tour as a domestique to help Levi and Martin, but himself will go for the Polka Dot jersey. He’ll also aid Veltis at the Vuelta and Chavanel in the Ardennes. He’ll lead us in smaller stage races, such as Tour of Oman where he hopes to achieve a podium and Tirreno.
Niki Terpstra
Niki is our only Dutchman, we’ll try to improve this very small number substantially next year in the transfer window. Niki himself will be essential rider in number of races this season. He’ll be our most important domestique for Boonen and Chavanel in the Classics, both cobbled and hilly. He’ll then target Dutch National Champs with a intention of winning either RR or ITT., before joining our Tour squad. Again he’ll be key domestique, doing the lead outs for Boonen and helping his teammates in general.
Team Presentation
Young Talents
Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
Guillaume is one of biggest Belgian talents coming out of our ranks, it’s his 2nd proper season as a professional in which he’ll try to gain experience and improve physically as well as mentally. He’ll is planned to ride the cobble classics, which we see as his biggest forte. He’ll also target smaller 1.1 races like Le Samyn which he came 4th last year.
Julien Vermote
Julien is another Belgian talent in our team. As Guillaume we see him as our future cobbled leader, as well a very capable hilly rider. It’s his 2nd year, so he’s still a neo – pro so we won’t put too much pressure on him. He’ll ride many smaller race in support and gain experience from them.
Andrew Fenn
Andrew is one of the brightest talents in world cycling. Last year he came 3rd in the U23 World Championships which could have been ever better place with more luck. After a hard negation battle with Sky, Andrew decided to join our new team. He’s a great all – rounder, and we will have to wait and see of what type rider he will develop.
Michal Kwiatkowski
Kwiatek is another of our top talents, already succeeding at Pro Tour level ith Radioshack last race, podium a tough stage races such as Driedaagse De Panne - Koksijde and Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen.
This year will be another year where he’ll develop and help more than he leads the team, but we believe in few races he’ll lead our team in many prestigious races. This year he’ll ride very similar program compared to last year, targeting smaller stage races with time trial in them.
For the new 2012 season we are changing or bike sponsor to Specialized. Given the quality of the product and the design, we simply state this bike as the best you could possibly ride. Hoping for 2011 to be the least with amount of punctures - certainly for us
Jersey
Our designers made completely new design for us in 2012 season. Combining two sponsors is not an easy tack, but we feel the designer did great job and accomplished the task with this beautiful and stand out jersey.
National Championships Jersey
We will have two National Champions included in our squad
Matt Brammeier as the Irish National Champion on the Road and TimeTrial !
Sylvain Chavanel as the French Champion on the Road after stunning vicotory !
World Champion
After fabulous TT win by Tony Martin, he will relish wearing this special jersey for the rest of the year.
Here you will find our most memorable photos of our riders, our team and overall the cycling world in next year’s, as reported by our screen-takers.
At the end of the month, you’ll have a possibility of voting out of 5 best photos, deciding best one for the month, the winning photo will go into our Wall of Fame forever.
The Team met in Belgium to discuss plans for the next year, decide rider's plans and more important to create bond between riders, especially with so many new riders in our team. That bond is vital if we are to be successfully in Pro Tour this year.
Exclusive Photos from the Camp
New Coaches Appointed
Four new coaches were appointed to our staff over the winter !
We wish to inform our readers that this season not only we will report and give your instant details from the races, rankings, transfers and many others things. We will give you something that none other team has to offer. And that is Live Video Report of the race.
No pictures. No words. No tables needed. Just plain link to the live video of the race which will be commentated exclusively by the OPQS Director Sportif that is assigned to that particular race.
You'll see all the orders given to the riders. Team Management and what it involves, communication with riders and live action of the whole race.
Here's an example of what the live report will look like :
We wish to begin this service at Paris - Nice this year. We will not report every race that way, we will like to keep it a mixture between normal reports and live action. So subscribe soon
Okay that's it's so far. Hope you will enjoy reading it And as always comments appreciated Edited by Alakagom on 31-01-2012 18:31
Rabobank is a professional bicycle racing team, sponsored by the Rabobank. The cycling team was founded for the 1984 season under the name Kwantum. Since 1984, the team has entered every Tour de France and since the introduction of divisions in 1998, the team has always been in the first division.
- strange intro for OPQS :S
fcancellara wrote:
Rabobank is a professional bicycle racing team, sponsored by the Rabobank. The cycling team was founded for the 1984 season under the name Kwantum. Since 1984, the team has entered every Tour de France and since the introduction of divisions in 1998, the team has always been in the first division.
- strange intro for OPQS :S
But good luck!
Heh, fixed, damn so much info that I copied wrong stuff from MS Word
Great, simply.. great If you keep this story on this level, we readers will have some enjoyable reading experiences in 2012. I give you a "perfect +" for the intro, and if you resize the last picture in "Goals-section", i'll give a you a "as perfect as perfect can be"
Also: great idea with voting for pic of the month and live-reports!
Great presentation, the idea with the videos is great, I will follow this.
Did your contract the trainers or were they already with the team? They are great!!
Edited by PCM rulezz on 31-01-2012 20:00
And as always comments appreciated 
