It`s the 5th season for the team and we are proud to see our sponsors really going with us. Main sponsor Aegon and all co-sponsors supported us since our team debut 2012. 2nd main sponsor Lavazza goes into the 2nd season. They got great feedback by many Italians seeing that the country is having a hard time sponsor wise at the moment.
Our successful PT promotion hopefully can bring back a lot more life into the Italian scene.
Edited by roturn on 19-06-2016 11:30
While renewals is said to be done for Team Aegon - Lavazza, the outcome still is very open and not made public yet.
In other news though the team seems to be quite anonymous right now as neither their post adresse seems to be correct nor there phone number or even their web page can be reached.
It almost seems as if the team is no longer! This would be shocking news for the newly promoted Dutch team, which was said to have high ambitions this year.
Other rumours say, it might be just some trick to avoid a buy-out as seen in past seasons as the manager wants to keep almost all rider inside the team and is afraid of losing all his pre-transfer tactics in the end.
How many times did the team manager claim, that going into transfers without the will to trade riders and how many riders then had to settle for a new home? Far too many a lot of experts are saying.
Hence cutting all lines, might be the manager`s best option to focus on building a PT worthy squad instead of replacing half squad.
Though in other news couple riders already told the media, that this is not a good way to handle such situation and they don`t get any response by their manager neither and if it doesn`t change soon, they might look for other options in the end to secure a 2016 contract.
A lot of alerts already pre transfers for Aegon - Lavazza.
The team is rather popular in trading away big names. This is not supposed to happen in 2016. At least this is what team manager roturn is saying pre transfers. Going back to 2015 or 2014 he surely did say the same.
Though this year there will definitely be couple riders, that are absolutely not leaving the team. You can probably guess, which riders that are basically.
The domestique riders never were made as non-transfers. But depending on their team history, some surely are harder to get then others.
But now to the more interesting information for other teams. As rumoured one rider was rather unhappy with the team hiding itself not being available in important issues.
As some internal investigation has found out, according to a local paper, this rider was Lucas Schädlich. The German time trial specialist with a good kick as well has renewed his contract but afterwards got insulted by the team to not giving him any feed-back. Hence his really nice contract of just 80.000k is not really worth a lot for the team as he refuses to ride properly for them. That`s a high quality rider in the best age looking for a new team.
Another big issue between team manager and the director sportifs was the different ideas about rider development. Sep Vanmarcke signed with the team in 2014 and goes into its 3rd year. I mean, he might.
Apparently the Belgium is not fully happy with his role. When signing back then, he was promised to developed into a PT ready rider challenging for the big races. Since then the team`s development focus though was on other areas. Keizer as clear team leader, Olivier as young prospect and Groenewegen as future sprinter.
This focus offside the cobbles and the rather low amount of support did hurt his chances and avoided a big classic win yet. Apparently Vanmarcke can leave the team to look for another team, giving him more development or support to reach his goals. With a wage of 150.000k he is in a good range for any team.
Hmmm, that is rather interesting to say at least. I dont get situation around Lucas Schädlich, but if he is unhappy with riding under Aegon, he has to go, that is logical.
We might be potentially interested in his services.
I wonder what Aegon manager can do with such a nice cap space after the clear promotion. Good luck there in wolves den!
It`s no big secret that our 2015 PCT promotion campagne was not really focussing the hilly races. Hence being in the PT now, a hilly leader was needed.
The manager was very fund in finding the special one and was confident enough for some crazy win goals in this terrain.
Win
Liege - Bastogne - Liege
Win
Giro di Lombardia
Win
Amstel Gold Race
Obviously those goals were made in the believe that the saved money would be enough to throw on Simone Ponzi. Some Kenyan team though had the same idea and apparently did save even more. Shit. Transfer Season Ruined for a moment and it only took 58 min actually to fail on the only rider the team wanted.
Having a quick look around though the manager found another very interesting rider in Sean De Bie. The young Belgium is one of the most talented puncheurs and will be a rider to watch in years to come. He just reached his maximum level, which is a bit of a pity as this will most likely mean, that having big success in the goals is almost impossible without the needed experience.
His qualities though are obvious. Great on any hills. Not too bad on any other terrain neither actually making him a very well all-around rider, who has a bright future ahead at the young age of just 25 years!
High expectations are set into him as he is one of the team leaders for 2016 alongside Martijn Keizer. But both sides are confident to get some kind of win-win situation.
It is less than 1 week in transfers but the team is complete according to team officials. Maximum 1-2 stagiares could be added at a later time.
But who are the new riders in 2016 and who has to say goodbye ahead of the new season?
One rider already was announced earlier in Sean De Bie as one of our big leaders. But there are more:
Ben Swift might be our biggest signing and will clearly lead our sprint team. He has proven over couple years already and might be the best sprinter in recent years.
After being with Vesuvio for couple seasons, we are happy to found a way to get him under contract. A potential top10 individual scorer in the Pro Tour is what our team needed and now got.
Another great signing is George Bennett. The Kiwi joins from Telkom Africa and will strengthen our climbing department. He already is quite far in his development and is in a very good age to further develop in the future.
Other signings are:
Thomas Degand
30 years
75mo 72hi 71tt
4.100
Geert Van der Sanden
28
71fl 76sp 77acc
4.32
With those two we have improved our depth. While first is an experienced rider to help in mainly the GTs and mountaineous stage races, later is an important rider for any sprint leadouts for our new leader. While already 28 years of age, the Dutch is not at his full potential yet and will be even stronger in 2017.
Saying Goodbye
Unfortunately all those signings needed other riders to leave and some really were hard to let go but were absolutely required.
First we want to thank our 2014-2015 cobbled leader Sep Vanmarcke. Our plan always was to train him into a contesting cobbler on PT level. Unfortunately in 2 years time we weren`t able to do so and by the look of it, it wasn`t possible neither in 2016. Hence we agreed to let him go.
In the same trade actually that included Swift and Vanmarcke a third rider was involved. Italian climber Fabio Aru also was traded to Vesuvio in this 3 rider deal. While being replaced by Bennett more or less, it`s still quite a bummer for our Italian sponsor Lavazza. Not only did we lose out on Simone Ponzi as Italian leader but also now lost another one hence Lavazza`s management already is rumoured to be highly unhappy with the decisions.
Third big transfer out is Lucas Schädlich. The German time trialist was expected to leave the team though as he wasn`t really happy with the amount of freedom he got being always the 2nd or 3rd row rider only. In a deal with Volkswagen, he only made the bigger deals possible.
Next on the "longer than expected" list is the most unfortunate rider. Tom Dumoulin once joined the team some time ago but now aims elsewhere. In the deal that brought Bennett into our team, our Dutch time trialist moves to South Africa to Telkom. Our TTT strength surely does lack a bit now but therefore we got a lot deeper in general.
With Alessandro Bazzana and Serge Pauwels two veterans left us as well looking to get some chances on themselves in the Continental Tour.
Loanies
One important part of the rider development is helping out other teams at times. CT and PT teams need to cooperate a lot to help out young riders reaching their most ideal development. While our team couldn`t really go for the youngest talents this year, we still decided to take some loaned in riders to fill our squad. This is kind of a win-win situation though as those also give something to us that we needed.
Hakon Frengstad Berger
from Spotify
71fl 75sp 75acc
4.02
Faycal Hamza
from Eritel
73fl 74tt 77prl
4.00
Muhamma Afif Ahmad Zamri
from Sauber
73mo 69hi 73tt
4.00
Alexander Krieger
to La Poste
71fl 79sp 79acc
4.100
While Berger is an important piece in many leadout trains, Hamza and Zamri are direct replacement for riders that left the team to strengthen our TT depth a bit more.
The other direction is gone by Alexander Krieger. After winning his first career stage in the 2015 Vuelta al Tachira, we agreed, that with Swift and Groenewegen ahead of him, his chances in 2016 would be limited. Hence we decided to give him one year in a lower division to get some more top results to come back stronger in 2017.
While the team itself is based in the Netherlands and with big leaders such as Keizer, Olivier, Boom or Groenewegen this is nothing to be changed as Aegon signed a long-term contract, some yet to be reveiled sponsor from the other side of the World, is being rumoured to sponsor the Aegon - Lavazza team from 2016 onwards.
According to a source from inside the team management, a New Zealand sponsor contacted the team after the signing of George Bennett willing to accompany his future steps as a professional cyclist.
Due to couple of reasons the sponsor itself does not want to be named for now but might consider future step-ups depending on Bennett`s role in the team.
Apparently as side effect of the new sponsor two young cyclists from New Zealand will join the team later this season as stagiares and might get some chances to ride with the team in the 2nd half of the year.
Aegon
Lavazza
Stevens Bikes
???
Badaling International
Tour of Qatar
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
Paris-Nice
Classique du Grand-Duché
SAA Tour d'Afrique
East Midlands Cicle Classic
Vuelta al Pais Vasco
Tour of California
Tour of the Czech Republic
Tour de Suisse
Volta a Portugal
GP Moscow
Vuelta a Colombia
GP Liechtenstein
Copenhagen-Malmo TTT
Tour of Tasmania
Andrei Kunitski
Martin Velits
Valentin Iglinski
Youcef Reguigui [Loan]
Ryder Hesjedal
Muhamma Afif
Hakon Frengstad
