Teams & Riders Cian Uijtdebroeks - From the wetlands to the top of cycling

[Libertine Seguros]

I'm a bit fuzzy on the how it all went down, so i honestly don't recall if / how he weaponised whatever Zonneveld claimed. But again, if Bora knew all of this was BS, they should not have let that affect them. It would be up to Uijtdebroeks to prove it if he wanted to use that as leverage. It being a Dutch reporter and not a Belgian reporter or German, kind of tells me what direction i would be reverting my focus.

That may be worth reverting focus for the source of the leak, but it doesn't change the stance on Uijtdebroecks' actions:

Claiming not to have released that information is not an apology for its release as was claimed previously by another user. Either Uijtdebroecks did release that information, in which case claiming not to have released it is an act of dishonesty; or he did not, in which case while there would be no reason for him to apologise, nevertheless the fact that he allowed the misconception to spread and took advantage of its implications rather than correct them is also dishonest - but imo not as bad as had he straight up released the accusations and then lied about having done so.

Like I say, opportunistic and manipulative at best, and bald-faced lying at worst. Either way, I don't think it reflects well upon him.

 

[CyclistAbi]

I mean, saying "no, I didn't do that" about something you've done is not the same as apologising for having done it. It's kinda the complete opposite.

If he never made the accusations and it was made up by a journalist or an agent and was actually sorry about it, then he should've come out with that at the time, rather than taking advantage of it.

Once the green light was given the transfer itself was orchestrated by other people and to be honest such things are often messy and borderline mafia alike. I agree that Cian could have acted a bit sooner, that part hence can be held against him, still when he spoke he retracted the accusations in behalf of somebody else that started it and i do feel that that is still rather important. To set things straight and to distance yourself from such methods. Furthermore when changing employer and third party is managing it then you tend to go "radio silent" and others do the talking. So bottom line somebody resulted to smear campaign and the person using that methods, there an apology is still warranted. I don't feel we will ever get it, though. On top of that it's rather common in sports and beyond, that we read daily about attempts at character assassination and similar. For example i doubt that the part of German media trying to smear him will ever apologise to Rogla it's just their agenda for whatever reasons involved. Soon likely Belgium to join in. It's Rogla that will apologise to them, by winning the Tour. So that is that.

 

[Valv.Piti]

You somehow managed to include the usual bad mouthing of Roglic and him winning the Tour in this thread. Wp

 

[CyclistAbi]

You somehow managed to include the usual bad mouthing of Roglic and him winning the Tour in this thread. Wp

Of course, media can trash talk, smear ... for whatever agendas involved but that doesn't mean you need to roll over and die.

 

[Hugh Januss]

He didn’t undermine the economic system because all 3 parties need to agree. RBH agreed, and they were paid a decent amount for it. Just like they paid SOQ for Evenepoel.

And Visma for Roglic. RBH is batting .667% on rider poaching.

 

[theyoungest]

Like I say, opportunistic and manipulative at best, and bald-faced lying at worst. Either way, I don't think it reflects well upon him.

You don't say!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Once the green light was given the transfer itself was orchestrated by other people and to be honest such things are often messy and borderline mafia alike. I agree that Cian could have acted a bit sooner, that part hence can be held against him, still when he spoke he retracted the accusations in behalf of somebody else that started it and i do feel that that is still rather important. To set things straight and to distance yourself from such methods.

It rings rather hollow when you basically get to take advantage of the situation to get everything you wanted out of the situation, and only then set the record straight. Doing so only once the benefits are secured and any potential consequences are avoided, like Bjarne Riis waiting until the statute of limitations was up before confessing.

He had ample opportunity to set the record straight beforehand and during the whole shebang, but chose to do so only after extracting maximum benefit. Distancing yourself from methods you, if not actively employed yourself, then at least took advantage of, after you have finished employing/taking advantage of them, rings false. Like, it's hard to believe that you disapprove of such methods/actions in the circumstances.

You don't say!

I thought it best to clarify in case anybody was unclear on my stance

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

It's rather normal i guess, once some relationship ends for people being entertained to take sides. During the negotiations the other side usually won't say something in the lines of you get to keep the house and the dog too, that is rather rare. Or claiming an affair was certainly not involved, like general public can read in media.

As for the The Eagle from Herning and singing like a little bird. Don't know to be honest, what is better. Should he keep the mouths shut or do you reckon it's still better he told it like it was? As for being smart about it, here i feel that he likely didn't want to end up being the scapegoat as it's not like he was in it alone. So i guess we can separate the discussion about doing it and what that means and after confessing to it or not. This can in the end be separate debates.

 

[CyclistAbi]

The Scapegoat

This was the first major painting Hunt made during his first stay in the Holy Land. He had the idea for it while researching Jewish rituals for another painting, 'The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple' (now in Sudley House). During his research, Hunt learnt that on the Festival of the Day of...

www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

It was believed that if these sins were forgiven the cloth would turn white.

You have to hand it to the mob, for the level of stupidity involved, historically speaking.

 

[hrotha]

And in Belgium you are able to stop working for those conditions if you feel that’s not what you are worth after a great Vuelta where your teammate stabbed you in the back by attacking you.

Oh I get it. If people move on from this 2-year-old story, you're free to misrepresent it so you can keep believing your guy is and always was the victim. You want the naysayers to move on while you stay manning the Uijtdebroeks Did Nothing Wrong trenches. Sorry but that's not how it works. If you still care enough to write the above with a straight face instead of moving on, then LS, Netserk and everybody else are entitled to bring up what Uijtdebroeks did whenever they want

 

[Berniece]

Oh I get it. If people move on from this 2-year-old story, you're free to misrepresent it so you can keep believing your guy is and always was the victim. You want the naysayers to move on while you stay manning the Uijtdebroeks Did Nothing Wrong trenches. Sorry but that's not how it works. If you still care enough to write the above with a straight face instead of moving on, then LS, Netserk and everybody else are entitled to bring up what Uijtdebroeks did whenever they want

I didn’t bring up the old ***, that’s just my interpretation of it when someone drags it back up. I’m more than happy to move past it.

He didn’t leave for money. He left because he felt abandoned by the team.

 

[CyclistAbi]

He didn’t leave for money. He left because he felt abandoned by the team.

Remco? Anyway guys, time for forgiveness has come:

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/loEnyhzPUc4


The pup was in the mud long enough.

 

[Berniece]

Remco?

Is this the Remco topic?

 

[CyclistAbi]

Is this the Remco topic?

We mix them up frequently. OK, yes, money for sure was a big part of it, Cian leaving. The thing is he could now be swimming in it if staying.

 

[Berniece]

We mix them up frequently. OK, yes, money for sure was a big part of it, Cian leaving. The thing is he could now be swimming in it if staying.

Like I said that’s not the case for both of them.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Like I said that’s not the case for both of them.

You would have to be rather naive to believe something like that. Even Patrick and some staff member from SOQ mentioned that for this amount of money it makes sense for Remco to sign for RBH. Nothing else was mentioned. As for Cian, he likely got a bit more, then at his old team, but if staying i assume he would now already be earning more then at Visma. He would likely be somewhere in the Lipo terrain and at Visma it was mostly a flop, till the last race he did. So hopefully now results and salary to start improving too otherwise the move was a clear downgrade.

 

[Berniece]

You would have to be rather naive to believe something like that. Even Patrick and some staff member from SOQ mentioned that for this amount of money it makes sense for Remco to sign for RBH. Nothing else was mentioned. As for Cian, he likely got a bit more, then at his old team, but if staying i assume he would now already be earning more then at Visma. He would likely be somewhere in the Lipo terrain and at Visma it was mostly a flop, till the last race he did. So hopefully now results and salary to start improving too otherwise the move was a clear downgrade.

Obviously SOQ isn’t going to say there team isn’t good enough to support TDF contenders… just like RBH dropped the ball on Uijtdebroeks when they let a teammate attack him

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Berniece

In all honesty it remains to be seen, on what role Remco will feel the most comfortable at, while riding for RBH, could still end up stage racing won't be it. Or i guess indeed Remco to turn into a stage racing powerhouse. As for Cian not all is doom and gloom either. That is currently he still is the team natural stage racing successor, after Jonas. So if the trajectory would be only up then in three to four years he could be in the position Jonas is currently in the team. At RBH he likely would be somewhere in position of Lipo ATM.

All in all both wanted more then they thought where getting and that is that, hard to blame them for that. At that point Cian was likely a bit immature,still, for Remco it's more of a natural transition and the time and circumstances was right for the picking. Fatherhood likely the next big step, in regards to the career he is in the saddle now, for a couple of years.

 

[LongtimeLurker]

I would rather have Remco and Lipowtiz in team than Cian. especially with riders like Lorenzo Finn, Luke Tuckwell all moving up soon.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Obviously SOQ isn’t going to say there team isn’t good enough to support TDF contenders… just like RBH dropped the ball on Uijtdebroeks when they let a teammate attack him

The problem is that if not backing him over Aleksandr Vlasov was enough of a dropping of the ball to merit all of the "abandoned by the team" rhetoric, then... the race in question was the 2023 Vuelta - if he felt betrayed, stabbed in the back by the team wanting to allow freedom to pursue his own GC goals to a far more established stage racer in Vlasov (who had already been top 5 of both the Giro and Tour, podiumed Paris-Nice and País Vasco and won Romandie)... then it's a very strange choice to join Visma, who already had Vingegaard, Kuss, van Aert, Kelderman and Kruijswijk on the books and were already known to be signing Jorgenson, so they had an absolutely stacked leadership and the chances of finding sufficient space where Uijtdebroeks would get to lead races that suited him without teammates who would be allowed the same free role that Vlasov had had, without it being the same kind of shooting fish in a barrel that UAE have been doing with Isaac del Toro this season, or that HTC were doing with Andre Greipel in sprint stages in 2009-10 kind of time, seem slim. Yes, there was a potential gap opened up by the departing of Primož Roglič... but a lot of riders of comparable or more proven level as Uijtdebroeks at the time, and one of the reasons Roglič was leaving was the very public mess created by the team's handling of that very same 2023 Vuelta, where they allowed more experienced GC riders to attack their own teammate.

So, if the reason for leaving Bora was due to feeling betrayed by the fact they gave other, more proven GC riders, freedom to ride for their own goals rather than back him, then picking Visma as a team to go to would look like just about the worst possible choice of team in the circumstances for Uijtdebroeks. Although maybe better than Ineos, seeing as if he felt betrayed by the team because of Vlasov in the 2023 Vuelta, I dread to think what he'd have thought of Sky's treatment of Chris Froome in the 2011 Vuelta and 2012 Tour.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

If we take everything at face value then one can say he was stabbed in the back by his old team and then he has thrown himself on a blade, both stabbings fall more in the knee jerk reaction category, mostly due to inexperience.

On a more serious note a year or two where wasted for not much, now i guess is the time to move on.

 

[Berniece]

The problem is that if not backing him over Aleksandr Vlasov was enough of a dropping of the ball to merit all of the "abandoned by the team" rhetoric, then... the race in question was the 2023 Vuelta - if he felt betrayed, stabbed in the back by the team wanting to allow freedom to pursue his own GC goals to a far more established stage racer in Vlasov (who had already been top 5 of both the Giro and Tour, podiumed Paris-Nice and País Vasco and won Romandie)... then it's a very strange choice to join Visma, who already had Vingegaard, Kuss, van Aert, Kelderman and Kruijswijk on the books and were already known to be signing Jorgenson, so they had an absolutely stacked leadership and the chances of finding sufficient space where Uijtdebroeks would get to lead races that suited him without teammates who would be allowed the same free role that Vlasov had had, without it being the same kind of shooting fish in a barrel that UAE have been doing with Isaac del Toro this season, or that HTC were doing with Andre Greipel in sprint stages in 2009-10 kind of time, seem slim. Yes, there was a potential gap opened up by the departing of Primož Roglič... but a lot of riders of comparable or more proven level as Uijtdebroeks at the time, and one of the reasons Roglič was leaving was the very public mess created by the team's handling of that very same 2023 Vuelta, where they allowed more experienced GC riders to attack their own teammate.

So, if the reason for leaving Bora was due to feeling betrayed by the fact they gave other, more proven GC riders, freedom to ride for their own goals rather than back him, then picking Visma as a team to go to would look like just about the worst possible choice of team in the circumstances for Uijtdebroeks. Although maybe better than Ineos, seeing as if he felt betrayed by the team because of Vlasov in the 2023 Vuelta, I dread to think what he'd have thought of Sky's treatment of Chris Froome in the 2011 Vuelta and 2012 Tour.

I think you’re missing a fair bit of context here. Bora didn’t start the Vuelta with Uijtdebroeks as the main leader, but the plan was to give him a free role and see how far he could go in his first Grand Tour. Fair enough at the start, especially since everyone had their own GC ambitions. But by the third week, the situation had changed — he’d already shown he was climbing better than Vlasov on big finishes like the Tourmalet and Angliru, and by stage 17 he was sitting 7th overall, almost a minute ahead of Vlasov. Both of them were too far from Mas in 6th to realistically move up (Uijtdebroeks 2m13s, Vlasov 3m08s), so the only thing left between them was that 7th place.

Then came stage 18, where Vlasov attacked — not to move up the GC overall, but effectively to take that spot off Uijtdebroeks. For a young rider who had clearly been the better climber all race, that must have felt like a pure backstab, more about internal pecking order than team success. And this was on top of him already feeling like the team didn’t fully back him for GC anyway — in his own words, “they didn’t really believe in that, it was always Vlasov.”

Add to that the Chrono des Nations fiasco. Time-trialing is his weak spot, and he went there specifically to work on it, but his shifter came loose mid-race and the spare bike they gave him was also unusable. He was understandably furious, saying it would be nice if the bikes were actually in order. For a rider trying to develop into a real GC contender, stuff like that doesn’t exactly scream “we’re invested in you.”

So no, I don’t think he left Bora because he didn’t want to deal with internal competition. It’s more that he didn’t feel the team rode as a unit, and he didn’t see the support or development he needed. Visma, on the other hand, had just swept all three Grand Tours, showed they knew how to win as a team, and had a track record of developing riders. Plus, they immediately gave him leadership at the Giro in 2024. From that perspective, the move makes a lot of sense.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Berniece

Still in retrospective and so far it seems that the move might have been a mistake?

 

[Berniece]

Still in retrospective and so far it seems that the move might have been a mistake?

No clue, we don't know how it would've went at RBH

 

[CyclistAbi]

No clue, we don't know how it would've went at RBH

I mean you wrote what you feel the reasons where for Cian leaving. If we take that at face value and compare it to his campaign at Visma so far, then his old team feels more and more like heaven on earth?