Having spent the top two years of his career with the Quick Step team, Belgian rider Geert Steegmans is leaving RadioShack and appears set to head back to the Belgian squad.
The 30 year old had a one year deal with RadioShack but things never clicked. He crashed heavily in Paris-Nice and missed out on the spring Classics. Steegmans recovered, but didn’t achieve the form necessary to ride the Tour de France; besides, the team’s emphasis was very much on the general classification, limiting opportunities for a rouleur and sprinter.
His results started to improve and he picked up seventh place on two stages of the Tour of Benelux, then eighth in the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen-Koolskamp. The push for a new contract coincided with a late burst of strong form in October, when he clocked up two top-four stage placings in the Circuit Franco-Belge, fourth in Binche-Tournai-Binch/Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke, and third in Paris-Tours.
According to Sportwereld, the rider and his agent Paul Degeyter spent time talking to Quick Step manager Patrick Lefevere at the Boonen and Friends charity cyclo-cross race in Mol on Saturday. It would appear that those talks were successful, and he will once again compete alongside Tom Boonen and his other former team-mates in 2011.
The move may well be a good one for Steegmans, who will align with a team more suited to his characteristics. In addition to that, RadioShack has just one year left of its sponsorship, giving him better long-term prospects with Lefevere’s outfit. The latter recently completed a deal with Czech billionaire Zdenek Bakala and Dutch businessman Bessel Kok, who bought majority stakes and secured the future of the team for at least three more years.
Steegmans competed with the Belgian team in 2007 and 2008, winning two stages in the Tour de France and Paris-Nice, taking the Circuit Franco-Belge and clocked up several other victories. He moved to Team Katusha but fell out with the Russian squad when he refused to sign up to a controversial anti-doping charter which demanded riders pay a sum equivalent to five times their annual salary if they tested positive.