Pro Team Luxembourg

[ingsve]

Wouldn't it be both sad and funny if they ended up with Geox as main sponsor...

 

[TBooker27]

Wouldn't it be both sad and funny if they ended up with Geox as main sponsor...

But mostly funny.

 

[DAOTEC]

http://www.leopard.lu/

 

[jens_attacks]

i love the team name.

 

[Anonymous]

cancellaras world champions jersey

http://twitpic.com/3fox6z

 

[leftover pie]

cancellaras world champions jersey

http://twitpic.com/3fox6z

hahaha



leopard? really? is that the best they could come up with?

 

[EmpressJo]

So, to recap on my original post...

Otherwise, I think 'Pro Team Luxembourg' would win gold for the most boring and unimaginative team name ever.

...all I can say is that I guess there are worse names than 'Team Leopard'.

 

[Christian]

Fotos of the Leopard offices in Howald/Luxembourg:

It is interesting that Genii Capital's (company of Gérard Lopez, main investor in the Renault-Lotus team in Formula 1) offices are in the same building, as well as the two "Gravity" firms, which I don't know but seem to be in the same field as Leopard S.A.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Won't be called Team Leopard...

 

[Christian]

Some interesting developments recently.

First, Brian Nygaard advertises "The Inner Ring" on his twitter:

I don't always agree/see the point of the content, but http://bit.ly/cSnawE is one of the most interesting thing online in pro cycling.

Then "The Inner Ring" publishes a bog about the secrecy of Team Luxembourg, which raises the question of who the sponsor of the team is, while at the same time stating rumours that Kim Jong Il's money is in luxembourgish banks. Ergo, Team Luxembourg is actually Team North Korea.


Brian Nygaard then actually responds in the comments section (it was announced by Ken Sommer and 39teeth on their twitters):

People: I thought I'd take a minute to comment, since the discussion is somewhat mislead. The riders on our team are NOT under contract with us until 1/1-2011. They are commercially and legally committed elsewhere - all the way down to the fact that their salary is not paid by us. That restricts our ability to embed journalists, film crews, bloggers in the process we're in the middle of right now. Our team presentation is on 6/1-2011. I'm sorry for giving you the impression that we're being cagey about the team, but we start next year and apart from duly announcing riders and being fortunate enough to bring everyone together last week for meetings and socializing, 1/1-2011 is when we roll out. All the work we've done so far, is to get everything ready for that. With regards to the "lacking financial transparency", alluding to our team, I'm left a little puzzled and slightly offended. As you know from the Pegasus debaccle, you need to have your stuff in order to be an approved team - even more so to get a ProTeam license. Here you need proper contracts, insurances, bank guarantee etc, ect. This process is run by the UCI, controlled by Ernst&Young and then, the final approval is granted by an Independent License Commission. We have received our license for 4 years, which is the maximum length available. If you have any doubts about the strictness of that process, you're counter-factual. If you have doubts about our openness and availability to the press, you're disregarding the fact that we open our team presentation to everyone (for free) - albeit with the limited amount of around 4500 people. Still pretty good and fairly un-cagey I think. Oh, and by the way, my Brand and Marketing Manager, the brilliant Ken Sommer used to work at Cervelo where he was in charge of the fan access. All good things come to those wait - even during the so-called silly season (which clearly peaks right now!) of professional cycling. Kind regards. Brian Nygaard

 

[Boeing]

Won't be called Team Leopard...

thanks for the insight. we appreciate your knowledge

 

[Christian]

TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR FREE FOR THE TEAM PRESENTATION ON JAN 6TH

starting December 21st on http://www.leopard.lu

It's gonna be huge - up to 4.800 people can fit into the center where they're doing it - also it will be on livestream at http://www.rtl.lu

I would really LOVE to go ... thing is, I'd have to be back here in Aix by 9:00 on Friday to take an exam ... don't think it's gonna work out Oh well, livestream it is, then!

This is the place:

 

[Christian]

Tickets are almost sold out, roughly 2 1/2 hours after they went on sale ... the server broke down because of the many clicks and the tickets available at the sports center Coque were gone in no time

http://www.wort.lu/wort/web/sport/a...700-tickets-ab-dienstagmorgen-erhaeltlich.php

 

[goggalor]

It will be called Team Saxo Bank.

This whole thing was an elaborate scheme to get rid of Riis.

 

[Christian]

Images from the Team Luxembourg camp in Crans Montana starting at 58:10 (interviews with Kim Andersen, Jens Voigt, Fabian Cancellara, Fabian Wegmann, Maxime Monfort, Brice Feillu in German and French)

http://tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/replay/v/20110102/0/31523/

 

[auscyclefan94]

Luxembourg Team to be called Leopard-Trek according to L'Equipe

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Leopard-Trek has been confirmed to CN.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-leopard-trek-to-be-presented-in-luxembourg

Susan

 

[Christian]

Leopard-Trek has been confirmed to CN.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-leopard-trek-to-be-presented-in-luxembourg

Susan

Thanks! This site speculates that the jerseys will be light blue and white, somewhat like BBox I suppose. This light blue was introduced a while ago at http://www.leopard.lu

It also seems that Belgacom is no longer, or never was a sponsor of the Team. The same link as above says they pulled out around three weeks ago, after "Brian Nygaard was too greedy". Jabra is still there, and Enovos is rumoured to be the biggest sponsor. Trek is supposed to invest 3 million €. Some sources also indicate a Swiss watch brand.

(this is all from the link above)

 

[ultimobici]

If this team doesn't win everything they aim for it will eclipse Sky in the egg-on-face stakes by a mile.

 

[Parrulo]

worst name eva lol

 

[theyoungest]

Tom Stamsnijder on twitter:

Goodmorning! Today is D-day!! We even have 2 rehearsels before the presentation! One thing is for sure, we going to look really nice!

Are they going to perform a little dance?

 

[auscyclefan94]

Tom Stamsnijder on twitter:



Are they going to perform a little dance?

Nope, they will ride in on motorbikes.

Here's Cancellara's

 

[Christian]

If this team doesn't win everything they aim for it will eclipse Sky in the egg-on-face stakes by a mile.

True, but I think a lot of things would have to go wrong for them to have a bad season. It might take a while for them to get their first victory, since Bennati is not quite Greipel or Cavendish but they should be good in the GT's and Ardennes. Even if they don't win any of the Ardennes or GT's they will at least animate the races with their Armada

 

[L'arriviste]

I'm just really glad the wait is over. Always great to see a new team, but I've got Leopard Fatigue Syndrome with all the drip-fed non-articles. I mean, this story has been going on since last July.

 

[Mellow Velo]

So, Schleck the younger becomes Trek the younger.
I'm sure this will become the source of much more speculation.