Hello, here is a new edition of the ING Cycling Magazine. It’s already the fifth edition. It went fast. The edition isn’t as long as usual, but I don’t think that disappoints you that much.
Of course, we’re going to present our new signings, we have an updated team roster for you, and an interview(which was very interesting). Our mascot didn’t do much, but we can assure you that he’s happy. Part 1: The NC’s
Part 2: Our new signings
Part 3: The updated team-roster
Part 4: Sponsor’s happiness
Part 5: Interview[b]
The NC’s
It’s just a short story. We don’t have the jerseys that Fränk Schleck and Grega Bole will wear yet. Don’t worry, it will not take that long anymore. Our jersey designer will finish his job soon, and I promise that it’ll be a nice one
Our new signings
John Gadret
A real climber. His age is 32, but he isn’t really declining yet. He won a stage in the Giro last year, and is(well, was maybe) a good cyclo-crosser. He signed for 1 year, but we’re happy with him, and might resign. Maarten Wynants
A great cobbled rider. Boonen&Boom will be very happy with him. + He’s Belgian. He’s 29 years old right now, and signed for 2 years. Chance on resigning him next year is big. Daniele Pietropolli
A very useful rider. Very, very allround. Name us six riders who can climb and sprint good? What, you can only name us three? Well, Pietropolli is one of them He’s a great puncher, with almost as good ability to do mountains, and finish flat stages. If there’s a sprint after a tough mountain stage, then he will win it(Or Hagen). He’s already 31, but signed for 3 years. That’s ok. The chance that we will renew isn’t huge, but there is a chance for a 1 years renew. Kris Boeckmans
He strengthens our sprinters squad. He’s great on the flat, but he hates mountains, and doesn’t really like hills. He’s young, 24 years old. He just signs for one year, but the chance that we will renew is huge. Johan Veenhof and Tom Boonen will be happy with such a good leadout I guess. + He’s Belgian Jeremy Roy
Attack, attack, attack. That’s the only thing that Jeremy thinks. He’s a great guy to have on your team, always taking the pressure of chasing the breakaway away from us, since he’s always in it. He can also climb a bit, so that can makes the difference if he’s in a break, and they get to the finish. He won the award for the most aggressive rider in the TdF last year.
He’s 29, and signed for two years. We’re happy with him, and there’s a good chance that we will renew.
Team roster
Of course, we present you our team roster again. It now contains all of our 16 riders. We used the same method as last time, with the 50-85 system. As you can see, we’ve got pretty good hilly riders, a great cobbled squad, and some good sprinters & fighters. We may have a bit of a shortage of good climbers though, and another sprinter won’t do any harm. We will see what happens. Anyway, here it is:
Sponsors happiness
A short summary of what the sponsor wants us too, and how close we are: The sponsor wanted us to have a good cobbled squad, since they want us to do good in the classics.
Passed. With Boonen and Boom, we will surely win some cobbled races. The sponsor wants us to have a good hilly squad, since they want us to do good in the hilly classics.
Passed. With Voeckler, Schleck and Van Avermaet, we surely have chances. The sponsor wants us to be able to have a good result on every race.
Almost passed. We only lack a great TT specialist. We’ve aimed for Phinney and Hagen, but some teams were earlier. Boom & Rasmussen are still good though. The sponsor wants us to have 35% of our guys Dutch
4/16 guys are Dutch. That’s 25% of the guys, so failed. We want 30 riders in our full team, so that would be 11 guys. We need quite a few… Don’t worry, that will happen guys. The sponsor wants us to have 15% of our guys Belgian
4/16 guys are Belgians. That’s 25% of the guys, so passed. We want 30 riders in our full team, so that would be 5 Belgians. That means that we only need 1.
And again, some guys signed for our team. One of the bigger U23 climbing talents from the Netherlands, Marc Goos(21) signed a three years long contract. He has won several U23 races...
The other guy who joined is a little bit older, Constantino Zaballa. The guy is 33 years old, but only signed for one year. He will have the role of Mentor, and is also great support for our climbers... He's a bit like Pietropolli, he can do anything. The only difference is that Constantino is a decent sprinter, and Daniele is a good one...
2 new guys, a French fighter and a Belgian Climber
Samuel Dumoulin(2 years) and Francis de Greef(3 years) join ING
2 new guys join, and the first guy is already our 4th French rider, Samuel Dumoulin. He's 31, so it's safe to sign a two years contract. He's another guy who thinks a lot about attacking, but also got other qualities. He's a good sprinter, and will definitely be a leadout parts of the season. Uphill sprints may be a goal for him too, although only if Bole isn't present.
The other guy is a quite young Belgian, Francis de Greef. 26 isn't very young, but he got space for improving, and got about 10 years in front of him. He's a very good climber, and him signing means that our climbing squad is about complete. He signed a long, three years contract, and will definitely join a GT.
ING just announced a special price for the 2000th view of this blog. Instead of Pizza, which was used by another team, the team decided to come up with something original.
The 2000th view gets the opportiunity to ask 1 question to the manager, and the manager is obligated to answer that question. Some questions will not be accepted, like, 'who's your nr. 1 draft on the next draft list?', and you can figure out some other questions which will not be accepted. But most questions will be accepted anyway. To claim your prize, you should be the first one to post in the topic: ''2000th post! I was it'' after we reached the 2000th post. You can then PM me your question, and I will answer it. Hope you guys like it.
and mentor Zaballa
join the team
(2 years) and Francis de Greef
(3 years) join ING
