Irish road race champion Matt Brammeier has spoken of his frustration with the winding down of the HTC Highroad team, with his comments revealing just how far plans had advanced for the future of the squad.
“I slotted into the team perfectly this year and was looking forward to a few more years working with this amazing team,” he told the Liverpool Echo. “Tuesday morning [of last week – ed.] everything was looking good and I had an agreement in place with HTC to stay for another two years, but as you know now this all fell through at the last moment. Pretty devastating, to say the least.”
HTC Highroad team owner Bob Stapleton announced last week that the team would not continue, saying on Thursday that the various options had unravelled over the course of four days. He said that initially it looked like a new backer was in place, but that the team’s decision to fully check over details was followed by the abrupt withdrawal of the sponsorship.
“This deal abruptly collapsed Sunday night during my wife’s 50th birthday party when I received an email and subsequent phonecalls from my intended partner,” he said.
“In doing our due diligence, we uncovered some difficulties that were not resolvable. The process of asking some very tough questions caused the deal to fall apart. I couldn’t say anything more than that. It was not a defect on the team’s side.”
There were other avenues to pursue, but they too didn’t work out. “We proceeded on our other options on the most expedited basis possible. We ended our discussions with HTC last night, and ended a remaining merger scenario which we believed would not succeed early this morning,” he said.
Brammeier’s statement that he was offered a deal last Tuesday suggests that those who offered him the contract were either unaware of the problems which had cropped up two days earlier, or were confident that a Plan B would work out. Either way, the signed deal became worthless once it was announced that the squad would stop.
Brammeier has had a strong first season with the team, riding strongly in support of riders such as Mark Cavendish, netting tenth in the prologue of the Tour of Qatar and also winning both the Irish road race and time trial championships.
“I’m pretty happy with my first year with HTC. My main goal was to win something. I feel like I have played a good role in the team and done my job to the best of my abilities.
“To win the two national jerseys was special. I really didn’t think that I would win even one this year, so to come home with both shocked me quite a bit and I was obviously pretty made up.”
He is currently competing in the Eneco Tour, and said that he will try to get into a breakaway at some point, as well as helping sprinters Mark Renshaw and Alex Rasmussen.
Further ahead, he will target a strong ride in the Tour of Britain, hoping that this will secure him a new deal for 2012 and beyond.
Meanwhile Valerio Piva, who worked this season as a directeur sportif with the team, has confirmed that he is moving to the Katusha squad for next season.
“Team Manager Andrei Tchmil asked me to be sports manager,” he confirmed to Sporza. “He is not satisfied with the affairs of the team over its image and the results.
“There was also a Belgian team interested, but too late. Too bad, because I live in Belgium. But now I have my mind set on Katyusha.”