After I lost my interest in my Garmin - Sharp story I had decide to make a new one. I hope you will like it.
I promise that this one will take longer than the Garmin story.
Introduction
Hello and welcome everyone
My name is Thomas and I’m a new sportdirector at the Omega Pharma – Quickstep Pro Cycling Team.
We stands on the eve of a new cycling season. A season were a lot has changed in comparison with the 2011 season: HTC Highroad faded, Radioshack and Leopard merged and there is the new Orica GreenEDGE team. But the most excited changes, in my opinion at least, comes from Patrick Lefevere and Marc Coucke, they decided to work together again (after 2003 – 2004, Quickstep – Davitamon). Together with Zdenek Bakala, a Czech businessman and the man witch the big money, the team is ready for this exciting season.
I hope you will follow us through this season and support us as hard as possible
Cheers.
staff
This are some of my colleagues
We have a lot of experience in the team car. With Bramati, Peeters and van Slycke we have 3 men who are with the team for a long time. They know most of the riders and they know what to do on each moment. Holm an Schaffrath came from the faded HTC Highroad team. Especially Holm is a great addition to the team. A man with so much experience is hard to find so we are really happy that he is with us. Last but not least is Tom Steels. Steels is a former Belgian top sprinter. He is quite inexperienced as a sportdirector because this is his second year. But nevertheless we can’t miss him, or young sprinter can still learn a lot from him.
This are our trainers who will work with the riders to improve their skills:
This are our scouts who will look for young talented riders:
This is our teamdocter:
Equipment and jersey
This are our Specialized elit S-Works bikes we can use during the season. The most other parts of the bike are from Zipp.
This is our new jersey
The team
Leaders
Tom Boonen (Nickname: Tornado Tom)
Tom is absolutely the most popular riders of our team. With wins in “De ronde van Vlaanderen” and “Paris – Roubaix” he was the best cobblestone riders of Belgian. But after 2010, thinks turned really bad for our Tornado. A nasty fall in California ruined the rest of his season. 2011 wasn’t better at all. He only won a stage in the “Tour of Qatar” and he won “Gent – Wevelgem”. In “Le tour de France” and “La Vuelta” he met the tarmac again.
But this is a new season so everything can chance again (hopefully). Tom says that he is ready for the new season and that he is not done with cycling. The “Ronde van Vlaanderen” and “Paris – Roubaix” are still he head targets. Tom will test himself also in some bunch sprints. Goals
Ronde van Vlaanderen: win
Paris – Roubaix: win
Le tour de France: stage win (and fight for the green jersey)
Sylvain Chavanel (Nickname: La machine or Chava)
The current French national champion is ready to shine in 2012. His main focus is to help Tom on the cobbles and maybe win something themselves. “Milano – San Remo” is one of his preseason objectives. In “Paris – Nice” he will go for a good GC and a stage win. But his biggest objective is “Le Tour de France”, Chava is still dreaming of wearing the yellow jersey. With the route of this year, we don’t think it’s impossible. Goals
Cobblestone races: try to win one
Paris – Nice: stage win and top 10 in GC
Le tour de France: stage win and were the yellow jersey
Tony Martin (Nickname: Der Panzerwagen)
One of the best, if not “the best” time trialers the moment. Tony is really proud off his rainbow jersey and can’t wait to show it. Last season was a brilliant one for Tony with a lot off TT victories and overall victories (Paris – Nice, Volta oa Algarve and Tour of Beijing) and of course the World time trial championships. We will do everything to help Tony to match his last season. His first objective is a top 5 in Paris – Nice. The tour is made for Tony with more than 100 of TT kilometres. He is targeting the prologue (and the yellow jersey). The 2 other TT’s are also great opportunities to get a stage win. The world championship are also a big objective. Goals
Paris – Nice: top 5 GC
Le Tour de France: TT victory and top 10 in GC
Win some smaller stage races (Volta oa Algarve, Eneco Tour, ...)
World championship: win ITT
Levi Leipheimer
Levi is our oldest rider in the team and that a big advantage: experience. Levi has won a lot of stage races in his long career and is looking to win some more for our team. Paris – Nice and the Amgen Tour of California are his first objective. But his biggest objective is “le Tour de France”. With so much TT kilometres, this is properly the last chance for a good GC. We think that a podium is possibly. Goals
Paris – Nice: podium
Amgen Tour of California: win GC
Le Tour de France: Top 3 GC
USA Pro Cycling challenge: win GC
Free elements
Peter Velits
Peter Velits is one of the better climbers in our squad. After his great “Vuelta a España” of 2010 he had a calm 2011. But now he will be back in the spotlights. In the “Giro d’Italia” he gets his chance to lead our team. A podium is the target. If the condition is good he will help Levi in the Tour. He also gets his chance in some other small stage races and the Ardennes Classics.
Dario Cataldo (Nickname: Picasso)
Cataldo is the winner of the “Baby Giro” in 2006 and is one of Italian next climbing talents. Cataldo dreams of leading a team in the “Giro d’Italia”. We like to give him this chance in the next years. This year he will help P. Velits in that race. If everything goes well he can lead our team in the “Vuelta a España”. At the “Tirreno – Adriatico” he will test his legs for the first time and wants a top 10 in GC.
Kevin De Weert
De Weert was the best Belgian at the 2011 Tour de France with his 13th place. This year he will go to this race as a domestique for Leipheimer. But that doesn’t means that he has no ambitions on his own. He has told us that he wants to fight for the polka dot jersey. If it’s possible he will lead our team in some smaller races and go for a good GC.
Nike Terpstra
Terpstra is our 3rd best cobblestone rider. He will help Tom and Chava as long as possible on the streets of pain and misery. Terpstra wants to ride a GT but we have not decide yet witch one it will be. Most likely it will be the Tour or the Giro. He will lead our team in some smaller stage races in Belgium and The Netherlands like “De 3-daagse van West-Vlaanderen” or the “ster ZLM toer”
Sprinters
Our best sprinter is without doubt Tom Boonen. But we have some other decent sprinters.
Gerald Ciolek
Ciolek is our second best sprinter and is ready to get back to the winning mood. After 2010 Ciolek hasn’t won anything so we hope that this season is a new start for him. We think that he have the potentinal to beat the best sprinters in the world. He will start his season at the “Santos Tour Down Under” were he will fight for a stage victory.
Francesco Chicchi (Nickname: Chicco)
He is maybe not soo fast as he was in the beginning of his career, but he is still fast enough to win some smaller races and stages. But he will not only race in smaller races. The Giro is his mean objective of the season, a stage win is still missing on his palmares so he know what to do.
Gert Steegmans, Andrew Fenn and Nicolas Maes
Those 3 guys are definitely necessary in our sprint trains.
Gert Steegmans is a former winner on the champs d'elysees so we don’t have to teach him how to sprint.
Andrew Fenn was 3rd on the road world championship U23 and is one of the fastest young talents.
Nicolas Maes is another young talented sprinter in our team.
Time Trialers
After Tony Martin there some other good time trialers in our team. For example Michal Kwiatkowski, Julien Vermote, Bert Grabsch and Frantisek Rabon.
Young talents
Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Nickname: Julio)
Guillaume is one of one of the greatest upcoming talents if it comes to cobblestones. We see in him the new Tom Boonen. On his bike he has already the same looks, is the a omen. He is the youngest rider of our squad so he still have a lot to learn. In the next 2 season he will most likely work for his team leaders.
Andrew Fenn (Nickname: Andy)
As said before, Fenn is one of the best upcoming sprinters. This year he will be a crucial part of or lead-out trains.
Michal Kwiatkowski (Nickname: kwiatek)
Michal is at the age of 22 already a decent time trialer. But he not on the end of his progression. He wants to become a good all-rounder.
This are ofcourse not our only young talenst. Julien Vermote (TT) and Matteo Trentin (cobblestone races) are also still young and very promising riders.
“Strangers”
Zdenek Stybar (Nickname: Stiby)
Stybar is the current world champion cyclo-cross. But after this cyclo-cross season he will turn his attention to road cycling for once and for all. He will be good in the cobblestone classics. This season he will start on the road at the “4 Jours de Dunkerque” at the end of the season he will ride his firts GT ever: the “Vuelta a España”.
Iljo keisse
Iljo is one of the best Track cyclist of Belgium. But just like Stybar he wants to ride on the road this season. He road race campaign will start at the “De 3-daagse van West-Vlaanderen” and later in the season he will ride the “Giro d’Italia to help Chicchi in the sprints.
@ fernando97: Thanks and it definitely will be longer @ whitevestblueshorts: thanks for following. @ sutty68: Playing with OPQS is always fun @ harry: I'm glad you like it
Next part will be up later today.
Winners never quit, quitters never win.
It's difficult not to be happy when you're surrounded by Belgians. - Mark Cavendish
I like this team, I just love them shirts, but can't start OPQS career... I don't know why... Meybe because they haven't got very good mountain and GT riders...
@ krzychu92: yeah the jersey is realy nice, I find it one of the best in the peloton. I realy like to play with OPQS because they aren't the strongest and you can realy make the difference yourselves. @ Batista15: Thanks, I'm glad you like the team.
I have edit the first post a bit, you can now see our equipment and young riders.
Hye everyone
First of all, thanks for reading this story.
In the beginning of this page you can find everything that you have to know about our team so let me introduce myself.
As I said before I’m a sportdirector at OPQS this season. But this is the first season that I’m going to do this job. The last 4 seasons I was working for the development team of quickstep (now known as efc-omegapharma-quickstep, website: https://www.efc-omegapharma-quickstep....om/nieuws/). But Lefevere asked me if I wanted to be a sportdirector at his first team. It was a hard decision to make because working with the top riders of tomorrow was always fun. But I took the job because I thought that it would be nice to work with some of the best riders in the world like Tom Boonen, Tony Martin and Levi Leipheimer.
The biggest challenge of this team is that we can compete on every terrain but it would be extremely hard to dominate. For example, we have some good climbers like Leipheimer, Velits and Cataldo but of course none off them are as good as the schlecks, Wiggens or Contador. But Nevertheless we still have the ambition to become one off the best teams in the world. The strength of our team is that we have a group of friends as you can see on the next video.
(I found this video thanks to the OPQS-story of Alakagom)
But let’s talk about the beginning of the season. In January we will race 2 races: the “Santos Tour Down Under” and the “Tour de San luis”. In that last one I will be at the second team car, can’t wait to start.
More information will come, stay tuned and thanks for reading.
Cheers ThomasEdited by PCM rulezz on 29-07-2012 21:26
Winners never quit, quitters never win.
It's difficult not to be happy when you're surrounded by Belgians. - Mark Cavendish
Hye everyone,
I have decide to continue this story in PCM 2011, I'm currently downloading the database (again) but it takes ages.
But is there a way to replace this page to the 2011 stories?
Thanks
Winners never quit, quitters never win.
It's difficult not to be happy when you're surrounded by Belgians. - Mark Cavendish
This is for much teams the start of the season. In the previous years this race was for sprinters, but this year can be different. There are 2 hard stages with a mountaintop finish: the second stages to stirling and the fifth stage with the finish on Old Willunga hill. Because of this we have decide that we will bring a sprinter and a puncher at the start. Our sprinter is G. Ciolek, he is fast and can survive a hill. Our puncher is K. Vandewalle, he will also be our team captain in this race. We chose him because he has a lot of experience and can guide our rather young team with Fen, Vermote and Trentin .
We would like to win the Skoda KOM jersey.
Especially Sky is very strong, with Cavendish and Boasson Hagen, they have 2 very strong and fast riders. Also O. Freire is a contender for a stage or even the overall. Their are a lot of other fast men like J. Degenkolb, D. Hondo, D. Oss, J.J. Haedo, ... The biggest surprise comes from Lotto - Belisol, they decide to bring J.Van den Broeck to this race and leave Greipel home.
So, this was everything for the preview. Let the racing begin.
(The first report is probably for tomorrow)
Edited by PCM rulezz on 09-08-2012 21:25
Winners never quit, quitters never win.
It's difficult not to be happy when you're surrounded by Belgians. - Mark Cavendish
