Cian Uijtdebroeks Transfer Drama with Bora Hansgrohe and Jumbo Visma. Wout van Aert returned to a winning way in Essen and plenty of World Tour teams reveal their kits for the 2024 season. Supertalent Albert Philipsen is confirmed to join Lidl-Trek for 2025
Collaboration between @thecyclingdane and @OwDoCycling
Spotify podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7GvIrEUO86kch7R1wV6dEH
Apple podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-echelon-cycling-podcast/id1670205530
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kYTJkNDc3NC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw
Amazon Podcast: https://music.amazon.es/podcasts/2c960b98-94c5-4038-85ce-95bcfbd5c358/the-echelon-cycling-podcast
11 Comments
BOYCOTT THIS CHANNEL, THIS CHANNEL SUPPORT ISRAEL.
I really liked Lotto Dstny's jersey this year. So easy to spot and the design looks great on the bike. Hope they don't change it. And I agree, the white jerseys are underwhelming.
Wout is Belgian in his blood so cyclocross is king to them
Cian will ride for Visma next year. The legal proceedings will take some time. He most likely will get fined or Visma will have to buy him out, but he will be riding for Visma next year. This happened to Wout as well.
There are actually more openings on Visma-LAB than on Bora. He would have had to compete for leadership with not only Roglic, but also Hindley, Higuita, Buchmann, Vlasov for GC and Meuss Bennett as sprinters.
On Visma-Lease A Bike there is Vingegaard and now Kuss for GC competition and Olav Koiij, who does not get much support for sprints.
That means that Cian Uitjtdebroeks can be either Captain by himself or co-captain in several stage races. With Kuss opting out of the Giro and Wout van Aert not going for GC despite the speculation, it will leave the Giro open for him to go for GC.
Suspend Cian for a year
On the topic of Cian, Dutch media Wielerflits just reported the reason Cian wanted to leave Bora. Apparently (this is still hearsay) he was being bullied and ridiculed at Bora, both by other riders and staff, for being fanatic about details like food, clothing etc, he was considered a black sheep in the Bora 'family'. During the Vuelta an app-group was initiated excluding Cian so they could gossip about him behind back. This is serious stuff, if he can proof all this, a court is going to make mincemeat of Bora. And rightfully so, I feel for Cian, what disgusting practices at Bora, how can this be happening in 2023…
Regarding Uijtdebroeks, he'll definitely be contracted by Visma unless Visma suddenly breaks the contract or such citing the legal troubles. If he can't prove good grounds for breaking the contract he'll have to pay +-110k compensation under labour laws.
Now the real question is what the UCI will do if he can't prove good reasons to unilaterally break his contract. In that case the UCI can give him an extra fine or even suspension next year for breaking UCI rules (you can't move teams during a running contract without permission of all 3 parties and the UCI).
News has come out of bullying at Bora towards Cian, however if he can't prove that, he'll be found in the wrong. Interestingly that same news said that both Ineos and Trek were interested and willing to pay the the full buyout requested by Bora (1m instead of 100k), but Cian wanted to really go to Visma instead it seems. And Visma doesn't seem willing to pay the 1m compensation Bora asks 😬
I heard somebody mentioning an interview where Jonas Vingegaard said that he would retire from road cycling at age 29.
Now, I can't really find the source, but if that is indeed correct then I guess it makes sense to have Cian as the up and coming leader of the team, learning from their current leader.
Me thinks Visma have been in his ear at least since the Vuelta they have form for this. It’s funny how all his complaints started there Visma don’t have the money to buy out his contract he better be able to prove his allegations or he could be in big trouble.
I think it's kind of disrespectful what jumbo-visma does. If Cian doesn't intend on staying with Bora he should organize a buyout but not surprise Bora by saying he terminated his contract..