Following in the footsteps of the LA/Pearl Jam and Sic Radical-Timberland teams, new sponsors have joined us in search of the growing success the team reached in the past couple of years. Although the sponsors are now multinational companies, the Team's HQ will remain in Portugal.
In the first year of it's existance, the Pearl Jam year, the team was nowhere near the promotion spots in the early predictions but 5 races won plus half a duzen of stage victories combined with numerou Top-10's saw the team end in a surprising 3rd place in the final rankings. Only the top two would promote but the disbandment of the Carlsberg team meant we would also be going to the PT for the 2010 season.
This year, we hope to build on the past results, even though we are perfectly aware that it will be almost impossible to repeat last years results. We will look to keep Fothen, Rujano and Sinkewitz with us for the new season but, unfortunately, we will have to say goodbye to Alessandro Ballan who's loan contract has ended. On the other hand, he will become a free agent so we're hoping it will just be a "see you later" rather than a "goodbye".
To start the presentation, we give you the magnificent jersey made by our favorite designer rjc_43:
Puncheurs: Jan Bakelants Pieter Weening William Walker Eric Berthou Salvatore Mancuso
Northern Classics: Enrico Franzoi Stijn Joseph Wim De Vocht Kenny De Haes
Time-Trialists: Yohann Offredo
Sprinter: Romain Vanderbiest Mauro Richeze Jukka Vastaranta David Vitoria Lloyd Mondory Tom Leezer Manuel Antonio Cardoso Evgeni Popov
Stagiares: Ivo Fernandes Vasco Pereira Domingos Gonçalves Pablo Lechuga Jordi Simon Albert Torres
Note: Loaned In Loaned Out
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Pearl Adidas' Season Goals
Top-3 Tour de France -> Failed Top-10 Giro D'Italia -> Achieved Top-10 Vuelta a España -> Achieved Win the Deutschland Tour -> Achieved Top-10 Team Standings -> AchievedEdited by p3druh on 23-03-2011 09:20
8th on the GC @Criterium International
7th @Rund um Koln
Winner of the Youth Classification @Vuelta al Pais Vasco
9th Overall @Vuelta al Pais Vasco 2nd @Amstel Gold Race
7th @Classique du Grand-Duche
7th @Seine - Marne - Seine 2nd @Badaling International 3rd @GP Yekeratinburg
Eric Berthou
Winner of Stage 5 @Paris-Nice
Wore the Yellow Jersey for 1 day @Paris-Nice
3rd on stage 20 @Giro D'Italia
10th Overall @Giro D'Italia
Winner of Stage 8; 2nd on stage 12 @Vuelta a España
Wore the Mountain Jersey for 6 days @Vuelta a España
3rd in the Mountains Classification @Vuelta a España 3rd on the GC @Vuelta a España
9th Overall @Tour de Suisse
10th @Giro di Lombardia
Roman Vanderbiest
Winner of Stage 6 @Tour of Qatar 2nd on the GC @Tour of Qatar
Winner of Stage 4 @Tour de Suisse
2nd on stage 5 @Le Tour de France
2nd on stage 7 @Le Tour de France
3rd on stage 21 @Le Tour de France Winner @GP de Fourmies
David Vitoria
Wore the Mountain Jersey for 3 days @Vuelta a España
Pearl Adidas are proud to announce their sponsor goals for the new season. Feeling that the team, at this point, does not have what it takes to be considered favorite for any type of races, the sponsors went for consistency rather than quality. With names like Rujano and Fothen on the roster (and looking to keep them with us), it was only natural that the sponsors would like us to focus on Stage Races. As such, we will try to avenge last years failure to win the Vuelta a Asturias as requested by the sponsors, repeating it as a goal for this season.
If we were to look at last year's result, we could clearly see that the team tended to preform better in the cobbled races and GTs. Given that we lost Ballan (the reason for the success in the cobbles), we choose to rely on the GTs for sponsor goals, choosing to go for a Top-5 at the Tdf, a Top-10 at the Giro and a Top-10 at the Vuelta.
As the last goal, the sponsors wanted to ensure our team would not only focus on completing on the races mentioned above and set finishing in the Top-10 of the PT Standings as the final goal for the season.
It was a bittersweet period for our team. We did manage to retain all the current members of our roster but we did so by compromising any chance of being able to compete for some of the big names currently on free agency. Some riders actually wanted a wage increase of 200% and we tried to compromise but, unfortunately, it was partially in vain. All in all, we will look to sell a few riders and try to go for another leader for our team if possible.
Pearl Adidas has been more active in the transfer season than what was expected. Not missing the opportunity to renew the squad with younger riders, some of our more experienced riders have been transfered to other teams. We'd like to thank them all for the work they've put in for the team over the seasons they were with us.
With the transfer season finished, there was still one important thing missing and that was our jersey. The creator of the jersey was, of course, the same one that has been with us since the very beginning of the team, the same one that has produced the brilliant Pearl Jam and Sic Radical jerseys and who has now done another staggeringly awesome jersey for our team.
Without further delays, here it is:
A very special thanks to rjc_43
Hope you like the shirt and may it bring as much success as the previous ones
So, here we were, the first race of the season. And we had a decent goal established for this race: a top-10. Without many TT experts on the roster, we found ourselves with only a slim chance of preforming well on the TTT. A top-10 would be good but the most important part would be not to lose too much time. We ended up in 12th place, 22 seconds down on the winners Auber 93. Stage 2 went down to the predictable sprint finish and at the start of it we had Leezer leading out Vanderbist with a great position. Vanderbist proved too weak to compete with the others on this stage and ended up in 8th place. Stage 3 for us was a identical copy of the previous stage. Good positioning, a nice lead-out by Vitoria and Vanderbist failing to deliver, only to end up in 6th place.
Next up would be an terrible stage for us. Not that the end result was bad, but we had a few scares along the way. Our team found itself at the back of the peloton and ended up caught in a break caused by the wind. We were in a very dangerous position and were only able to attain the same time as the winner by a last minute ditch by Marinangeli who was able to close down the gap and made sure the group (in which our leader Vanderbist was) didn't lose any time. You would think that this stage would teach our team a lesson but it didn't. Stage 5 was identical. We found ourselves yet again in a group trailing the leading peloton only to be saved by the final sprint that merged the two groups together.
And so we went on to the final stage. Our last chance to perform well and get a decent result. And finally our team decides to take matters in to their own hands. We were at the front of the peloton, lead the peloton when a break was made due to the wind, broke up our group again and made a perfect lead-out for Vanderbist by Vastaranta. To round up this perfect stage, Vanderbist was able to follow through and hold off Bennati and Roelandts for the stage win. And most of all, the gaps between the groups were so big that, together with the bonus seconds from the win, ensured Vanderbist a top-10, our goal. In fact, he moved all the way up to 2nd place overall with Offredo also managing to rise to 4th place on the GC and our team getting the top place in the Teams Classification! An overall great race for our team, saved by the bell.
