Booker wrote:
Really nice jersey there Ivan, looking forward to seeing your Bulgarian core grow and develop this season. Good luck starting tomorrow!

ivaneurope wrote:
Team temporaily SUSPENDS all opperations. Comment will be made later

After long hiatus VMP - Argon 18 is happy to tell that they're still alive and here. Before having extensive report on the first months the team would try to make a stance on one potential issue - could Tour of Bulgaria be excluded from the calendar in 2018?

The race is thought to be dependent on the presence of Bulgarian riders and teams in its MG history. A few years ago the nation had its own team -
in partnership with Boeing the team led by TMM was part of the ProContinental landscape and was the main home for the riders from Bulgaria to participate in their home event.

However in 2016 the team abandoned its Bulgarian roots and the reformed Podium Ambition, now with licenses from Barbados and Mauritius began from the lowest level - the Continental ranks. The team has acheived promotion and for 2017 all links with Bulgarian sponsors were severed.

In the midst of the shake-up within TMM's opperation a new project,
led by Bulgarian sponsors emerged. Ivaneurope's Vivacom-DataMap marked the return of the telecommunications oppeartor in the MG and the team featured some of TMM's former riders like Nikolay Mihaylov and Stanislav Zaraliev. But the debut season was total nightmare - despite some solid finishes, the team finished at the bottom of the table in the CT ranks.
Moreover, there were talks that Vivacom could end prematurely its involvement after the team missed the deadline for registration in the national championships.

The 2017 season didn't start well too despite signing Grega Bole, Petar Panayotov and Maxim Belkov to spearhead the team to new fortunes.
Now on the sponsor front it's also tough as Vivacom is rumoured to leave the team after their deal expires. Following Moto-Pfohe's takeover the new owners aren't keen in cycling and DataMap could also be out. So far only Argon 18 has commited future with the team.

The search of new sponsor is rumoured to be started with the new main sponsor is rumoured to be from the IT-sector. But the real struggle is to keep the Bulgarian idendtity - the team is currently competing under Bulgarian/Canadian license. But should the new sponsor demands change of the nationality, this could potentially put Tour of Bulgaria to its end.

December 15, 2017 - at a press conference, held in Sofia, Vivacom officially announced that they will scale down their sponsorship of VMP -
Argon 18 at the conclusion of the season. The company would continue its current commitments with the team until the end of the season and could try to negotiate a different deal with the team as partner status.

According to insiders poor showing in the last season, a no-show at the NC's and slow start on this season, were the catalysts for this decision. The team tried to improve its fortunes by signing climbers Petar Panayotov from Netlia-Vonin and Maxim Belkov from Tinkoff, as well as sprinter Grega Bole from Isostar-Adriatic. However the season started very poor and it wasn't until San Marino Hill Classic, Tour of Vancouver and KBC De Panne Tour where the team gained momentum. Now the team is looking on keeping the momentum in the next flagship events.

It appears that Vivacom won't be the only sponsor that could be exiting or decreasing its involvement: Moto-Pfohe recently changed ownership and the new owners said that they aren't keen on using cycling as sponsorship platform. DataMap is also looking to leave. Only Argon 18 announced that they'd continue with the team.

The search for new main sponsor is rumoured to be one with some suggest that the potential new sponsor would be from the IT-sector. But the biggest hurdle would be the team's nationality - it's already known that this year the team is competing under dual Bulgarian-Canadian license and even though the potential new sponsor has a branch in Bulgaria it's not 100% certain that the team would compete under Bulgarian flag in 2018

Despite the dreadful season that the team endures, VMP - Argon 18 has said that the search for new main sponsor is almost over and there are few details that need to be clarified before completing the deal. With major sponsors like Vivacom and Moto Pfohe ending their involvement, the team was in a desparate need to find new investors to fill the void otherwise the team's existance was on the line.

Now it's understood that the team is near completing deals with new sponsors. Though there are some conditions set by the team. Firstly as it was mentioned ivaneurope, who is the team's chief director, is insisting on the team to have Bulgarian license for 2018 in order to guarantee Tour of Bulgaria's place in the MGUCI calendar. It's been rumoured that the new main sponsor is keen on the idea of keeping the team's Bulgarian identity, but the team in exchange need to fill a certain quota of rides to riders from their nationality to which, according to insiders, ivaneurope and Andrey Zeits, director of day to day opperations, had provisionally agreed to comply with and was met with approval by Argon 18

The deal is set to be finalized in the next few days, but due to a wish by the directors the official announcement would be made at the Tour of Bulgaria's presentation.