There has been a long day and considerable mystery about what company is backing the new Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project. Several names have been floating around on the grapevine but, according to Tour de France runner up Andy Schleck, there is not one single company that is putting up the cash.
Speaking to the Basque Deia newspaper, Schleck said that the main backer is a businessman who he does not name. He said the final team title has not yet been decided, but that the squad is secure for the next five years. He and his brother Frank have signed for four.
“The person who has put everything together is an entrepreneur from Luxembourg,” he explained. “He is the big boss. The team was created in a similar way as they did a few years ago with Slipstream or High Road. The manager will be Brian Nygaard, a former press officer of Saxo Bank, and the director Kim Andersen.”
Both were involved in Schleck’s previous team, Nygaard leaving in 2009 to work with Team Sky and Andersen quitting midway through this season. The transfer of so many of the Saxo Bank riders has meant that the new team features a very significant chunk of the old one; he stresses that it is nothing personal. “The decision to leave the team is not a political thing,” Schleck said, then went on to give a little more detail about how it is being set up.
“It’s not public money. Everything is private capital, an entrepreneur who has plenty of money and wanted to embark in cycling,” he stated. “We have small sponsors, the main [team] name has not yet been decided on. The project is for a minimum of five years. I have signed for four, as has my brother.”
“It is a good team, very similar to Saxo Bank,” he continued. “It’ll be a good one to fight for the Tour, the big objective, but the Vuelta al País Vasco, the Classics will also be important.”
The decision to change teams was taken before the Vuelta a España, from which Schleck was sent home early after being out drinking at night with Stuart O’Grady. He was already set to leave, but that made his relationship with Bjarne Riis a more tense one. While he concedes that he was wrong to do what he did, he isn’t happy with the penalty that was handed to him.
“It [their working relationship] is no longer the same. Bjarne and I have been together for a long time, but for me the decision in the Vuelta was not correct. He could have said we had to pay a fine, but send us home ... I am not in agreement with that. I was at the Vuelta to help my brother and I could not do that.”
Not in favour of WADA night tests, hopes Contador is clean:
Schleck was asked about a number of other topics, including WADA’s recommendation that late night tests would be introduced to cycling. This is a bid to eliminate the chance of any riders microdosing EPO and escaping detection as tiny amounts administered intravenously can disappear in several hours. Schleck isn’t a fan of the idea, though.
“During the night?” he said. “That is ridiculous…we must preserve the privacy of the athlete. I think it’s enough that we wake up at 6am.”
His contention is that doping is isolated, and that it is wrong to blame all riders for it. “If a rider decides to take something to do more, it is stupid…but he is not cycling. We are not talking about a collective consciousness.”
One who may potentially have been cutting corners is the rider who beat Schleck for the second year running at the Tour de France. Alberto Contador finished 39 seconds ahead of him in Paris but risks losing the title after testing positive for Clenbuterol. Schleck has a right to be angry if doping allegations are proven, but he seems to think that the Spaniard did nothing intentionally.
“In the end, it might be so,” he said, when it was put to him that Contador might be disqualified. “But I have not won the Tour on the bike. I have not arrived in Paris in yellow. I don’t know what will be decided, but for me, I am still second in the Tour.
“I hope that Alberto is innocent and can prove it. I don’t think that he has done anything, but it is certainly not for me to determine. There are doctors and advisers who handle all the information to decide this case. I sent him a message. The only thing I said to him was that I hope he is innocent and that I believe in him. Nothing more.”
He’s less happy about Contador attacking him when he had chain problems. “I forgave Alberto, but I didn’t forget what happened. This is one of those situations that are not forgotten. If you come to me and apologise to me for something you’ve done, I say ‘okay, that’s fine, that I accept the apology.’ But forgetting it is another matter. In cycling, everything comes around again.”