On the 20th of April the former Dutch riders Erik Breukink, Michael Boogerd and Jean-Paul van Poppel announced, together with Michael Zijlaard (the husband of Leontien van Moorsel), their will to set up a new, completely Dutch, cycling team, with the name "Orange Cycling".
At that time it was a preliminary announcement with the main goal to launch the concept and start the search for a sponsor.
While Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Shimano) today won the individual time trial in the Eneco Tour, the team announced that it had found it's main sponsor!
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The sponsor: Roompot Vakanties
Indeed, with a contract for 2 years and an option for a future extension, Roompot Vakanties gets associated to this 100% Dutch initiative which would like to set up the team around some experienced riders and several future Dutch talents.According to the new sponsor, the association Roompot/Orange Cycling Team is quite logical in this context since Roompot is the only big actor in the world of holiday parks which is completely Dutch. Furthermore, Roompot Vakantieparken would like to use the cycling team to pass on the message that biking and doing exercices is good for your health and fun at the same time!
In June we learned that Roompot Vakanties had to choose between becoming one of the new sponsors of the UCI ProTeam Belkin Pro Cycling Team (after Belkin announced before the Tour that it would end its sponsoring at the end of the year) and becoming the main sponsor of the future Continental Pro Orange Cycling Team. In the end, the 100% Dutch initiative was thus prefered by the Dutch company.
The progress of the team
Having a sponsor is one thing, but of course the team also has to progress on its recruitment and on setting up its administrative and sportive structure.In order to do so, the team had sent its licence request to become a UCI Pro Continental Team in 2015 and thus started to make the first steps towards the official creation of the team. However, this also brings in some new obligation, such as having at least 16 riders, 3 directeurs sportifs and 5 other staff members (paramedical assistants, mecanics...) before the 1st of October (to be more precise, at least 10 riders contracts need to be signed on the 1st of October, 15 on 20 October and 16 on the 1st of December).
The team indicated it's currently discussing with several riders, focussing on future talents to give them the chance to develop in a proper way.
According to the rumours, the team would be talking with riders like Bert-Jan Lindeman (ex-Vacansoleil and currently in the Rabobank Development Team), Maurits Lammertink (ex-Vacansoleil and currently with Cyclingteam Jo Piels), Johnny Hoogerland (ex-Vacansoleil and now with the Italian team Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) and Maarten Tjallingii (Belkin Pro Cycling Team), but officially Roompot/Orange Cycling Team didn't announce any names so far ...
The team will thus be a second division team in the 2015 peloton, but it already has guarantees from some UCI WorldTour races (incorrectly called ProTour races in the team's press release) including the Eneco Tour and the Amstel Gold Race.
The official team presentation will be on 2 January 2015 during the Six Days of Rotterdam.
The signing of Johnny Hoogerland already seems to have been confirmed and the team would consist of 18 riders. door Thomas Vergouwen
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Bonjour, je suis un collectionneur de cartes de coureurs de cyclisme, commepuis je faire pour avoir le cartes de Votre coureurs ? Merci de me repondre, salutations sportives.
Paolo Gandolfi
via Bixio, 66
43125 Parma
Italy