Diabetes team growing in status with WorldTour wildcards in second season at ProConti level
Team Type 1-Sanofi is looking back at a successful 2012 season, which was only its second at Professional Continental level. The Atlanta, Georgia, based team features six riders with type 1 diabetes in its 23-strong 2012 roster, and seeks to spread the message through the diabetes community that “with appropriate diet, exercise, treatment and technology, we believe anyone with diabetes can achieve their dreams.”
The season saw the team’s international status grow, receiving invitations to such WorldTour races as Milano-Sanremo, la Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and - for the second straight year - the Tour de Suisse; although the American team was disappointed to miss out on a spot at the Tour of California.
“Motivating and empowering the diabetes community around the world is our proudest achievement at Team Type 1, and it’s thanks to organisations and people who see our social mission and our sporting merit that we have created an active cycling community partnership to push back at one of the planet’s greatest non-communicable disease death threats,” said CEO and co-founder Phil Southerland.
“Every country we raced in, we found local experts within Sanofi, responding enthusiastically to help adapt a universal message of hope and inspiration for the global diabetes community, based on our American cycling team. To see it work so successfully in France and Belgium and Denmark, then again in Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Poland, Italy and Turkey as the team worked its way from Australia last year and New Zealand at the end of January and finish just outside of Shanghai in November – that’s a vision of excellence that deserves our eternal thanks and hearty appreciation.”
Southerland paid tribute to the team’s general manager, Vassili Davidenko, crediting the retired Russian sprinter with putting the young American team on the World map.
“Thanks to Vassili Davidenko’s strong foresight and worldwide contacts, Team Type 1 built itself into a WorldTour wildcard team after our first full European season, and sent well-prepared and professional squads to high-visibility races on the competition calendar with noticeable athletic results and excellent partnership,” Southerland said.
In addition to the WorldTour races, Team Type 1-Sanofi also managed to secure invitations to a number of major European races, including the Österreich-Rundfahrt, and the Tour du Limousin - where Alessandro Bazzana, Daniele Colli and Jure Kocjan (pictured) managed to take stages - but it was a domestic race that got the team noticed at home.
The team ended the season in the Tours of China I, China II, Hainan, and Taihu Lake, where Alexander Serebryakov racked up a total of nine stage victories.
“We had a few simple goals this year – go to World Tour events, race a fuller French Cup schedule and get 20 victories,” Davidenko explained. “I am happy to say we have achieved all three. I thank the riders and staff for their hard work in seeing these objectives through to completion.
“Winning the Philadelphia TD Bank International Cycling Championship is our most visible success, and equally as important are two wins and the sprint and polka-dot jerseys at the Tour of Austria, as well as the Quebec City stage at the Tour de Beauce and multiple victories across five stage races in China,” he continued.
“But it’s also important to note that at times we had three squads racing around the world on the same day – a victory for scheduling and logistics, material processing and human relations, not to mention washing bikes, rubbing sore legs and making tomorrow’s bottles.
“We are a U.S.-registered Pro Continental team, with riders and staff from 11 countries, speaking 13 languages, with warehouses in Italy and Atlanta,” he explained. “Our success helps us to work well together, and working well together brings us our success.”