Bahrain - Merida Pro Cycling Team

[CheckMyPecs]

Re: Re:

Yeah,its so funny how people can be delusional.All this middle east "crisis" applied on "ohhh lets stop all the trade and contact with middle-east" is hillarious,most of us dont realize that it would have probbly even worse outcome...

And applied on cylcling business,cmonnn

Evidence?

 

[kareeem]

Well I can't see how stopping all trade and contact with them would improve lives of people of Bahrain in any way but I could be wrong.

To be fair I've just googled this prince/sheikh guy and the human rights issues in Bahrain and I can see why people might have a problem with it. I guess it comes down to if you are cynical enough to be able to ignore it.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Re:

Well I can't see how stopping all trade and contact with them would improve lives of people of Bahrain in any way but I could be wrong.

Concerted action can have a real impact on the lives of people being oppressed.

See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporting_boycott_of_South_Africa_during_the_apartheid_era

 

[doperhopper]

Re:

If you're not going to support this cycling team because it represents a despotic country I also hope you don't have a bank account... Because they do a **** ton of business with shady as **** countries like Iraq, Iran (despite this actually being illegal for the time being because of the trade embargoes, they'll always find loopholes), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arabian Emirates, Egypt, etc.

While I was working at ING Belgium I think around 80% of the bills from big companies we processed were sent to countries from the Middle-East. And they weren't harmless products either: lot's of weapons are being shipped to Saudi Arabia from Belgium.

Keep posting, everybody's looking forward to the upcoming "Belgium papers"...

 

[ILovecycling]

Re: Re:

Yeah,its so funny how people can be delusional.All this middle east "crisis" applied on "ohhh lets stop all the trade and contact with middle-east" is hillarious,most of us dont realize that it would have probbly even worse outcome...

And applied on cylcling business,cmonnn

Evidence?

How can you give you an evidence on anything that "might" happen .I can give you a theory (not right subforum).., the thing is that if you forbid legal connections,then always come up gray economy and illegal trade - in short.

 

[glassmoon]

Re: Re:

Astana, Baku Sinnergy, SkyDive Dubai, Bahrain - are there any despotic Asian countries left without a cycling team?

ISIS

+ DPRK

 

[Jancouver]

The problem is that teams created by one of these rich puppets are only prolonging the misery of the current structure of cycling sponsorships and money sharing.

Now this Sheik, will come in, get his new toy and in a few years, just like Tinkov or IAM will give up and the team will be gone. The only beneficiary from all this mess is ASO and the rest of the teams will continue to struggle to fill their budgets unless governments and oligarch finance them.

Unfortunately, as long this kind of people keep coming in and buying their temporary toys, cycling will be stuck in the last century.

 

[Praying Mantis]

INRNG discusses what can actually be done about this team according to current rules here: http://inrng.com/2016/06/can-the-uci-stop-the-bahrain-team/

Unsurprisingly, it's very little, or nothing at all. The state of sponsorship in cycling being the way it is, we can all see what's going to happen here.

 

[TMP402]

Brent Copeland will manage the Bahrain team and Merida might provide bikes which probably means farewell to Lampre. A lof that team will probably move to Bahrain but I could see Modolo drawing interest from BMC.

 

[Red Rick]

That's far enough off topic, let's turn back to cycling shall we?

 

[Red Rick]

So, it seems this team is happening, and it seems there will be an announcement tomorrow. That's why we're reopening this thread. However, this is not a thread for discussion of politics and human rights issues, so keep it about cycling only. If you want to discuss the former, you can make a thread in the cafe.

 

[FilipeFD]

rumours

ULISSI Diego (Lampre),
VANOTTI Alessandro (Astana),
AGNOLI Valerio (Astana),
VISCONTI Giovanni (Movistar),
BOARO Manuele (Astana),
COLBRELLI Sonny, (Bardiani),
NIBALI Vincenzo (Astana)

why only italians?

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

rumours

ULISSI Diego (Lampre),
VANOTTI Alessandro (Astana),
AGNOLI Valerio (Astana),
VISCONTI Giovanni (Movistar),
BOARO Manuele (Astana),
COLBRELLI Sonny, (Bardiani),
NIBALI Vincenzo (Astana)

why only italians?

I've heard rumours about Copeland bringing Meintjes with him.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

rumours

ULISSI Diego (Lampre),
VANOTTI Alessandro (Astana),
AGNOLI Valerio (Astana),
VISCONTI Giovanni (Movistar),
BOARO Manuele (Astana),
COLBRELLI Sonny, (Bardiani),
NIBALI Vincenzo (Astana)

why only italians?

...because the team is built around Nibali.

 

[pastronef]

Re: Re:

rumours

ULISSI Diego (Lampre),
VANOTTI Alessandro (Astana),
AGNOLI Valerio (Astana),
VISCONTI Giovanni (Movistar),
BOARO Manuele (Astana),
COLBRELLI Sonny, (Bardiani),
NIBALI Vincenzo (Astana)

why only italians?

...because the team is built around Nibali.

and maybe because they´ll get Lampre WT license, so it keeps an Italian flavour?

 

[El Pistolero]

Visconti, Ulissi and Nibali in one Giro squad would be pretty cool.

 

[luckyboy]

If they find 6 more guys like that and they will have 9 one-man teams at the Giro.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

If they find 6 more guys like that and they will have 9 one-man teams at the Giro.

That's why they're bringing Brent Copeland.

 

[Samamba]

It's official now.

The team will be called the BAHRAIN MERIDA Pro Cycling Team.

 

[SafeBet]

Nice to see Sonny finally having his WT chance. I'm expecting big things from him.

 

[BigMac]

Re: Re:

rumours

ULISSI Diego (Lampre),
VANOTTI Alessandro (Astana),
AGNOLI Valerio (Astana),
VISCONTI Giovanni (Movistar),
BOARO Manuele (Astana),
COLBRELLI Sonny, (Bardiani),
NIBALI Vincenzo (Astana)

why only italians?

I've heard rumours about Copeland bringing Meintjes with him.

Nooooooooooo! Louis, Y U DO DIS!

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

rumours

ULISSI Diego (Lampre),
VANOTTI Alessandro (Astana),
AGNOLI Valerio (Astana),
VISCONTI Giovanni (Movistar),
BOARO Manuele (Astana),
COLBRELLI Sonny, (Bardiani),
NIBALI Vincenzo (Astana)

why only italians?

I've heard rumours about Copeland bringing Meintjes with him.

Oh no! They have some exciting riders and then they bring in a boring one like Meintjes?

 

[TMP402]

If their logo is anything to go by, they like the WIGGINS look.

http://teambahrainmerida.com/

 

[glassmoon]

disgraceful

 

[Stilletto]

Any middle eastern riders that could actually make this team ?