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Will, How and when will an aussie team have a pro team?

Jun 16, 2009
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After the success of Australians over the past years and the recent wins of lloyd, evans, goss, lancaster and porte leading the young riders jersey;

will, how and when will an aussie team have a pro team?

Is Fly V going to be the team or will it be a setup like sky how they will come into the sport with a bang, just recruiting a whole team from scratch and becoming a proteam?

I think if an aussie wins the worlds in geelong, the popularity of cycling in aus will go up enormously. Even if they don't, a fair amount of casual sports people will come to realise what a great sport cycling is (esp. those who watch it).

RE:Fly V TdF-bound by 2012?
(In this article it says that FLY V would also like to be riding some protour events)
I am not sure how they are going to fit in the protour next year or even getting in the protour events with teams like bmc, vacansoleil, skil and saur sojasun. The problem with the sponsor issue is that Australia is so far away from Europe, what exposure will the company get from it over here and won't the sponsor have to be a big company which is willing to invest overseas to have a reason to put money in the sport?

EDIT: SORRY ABOUT TITLE SCREW UP! :p
 
Jul 11, 2009
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Why does Australia need one?

Would it just be full of Australians? Why would a protour team structure itself like that?

I'd rather see our star riders in a variety of teams competing against each other.

Cycling is not cricket we dont need national teams outside of WC and Nalimpics... thankfully.
 
Jun 16, 2009
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53 x 11 said:
Why does Australia need one?

Would it just be full of Australians? Why would a protour team structure itself like that?

I'd rather see our star riders in a variety of teams competing against each other.

Cycling is not cricket we dont need national teams outside of WC and Nalimpics... thankfully.

Why does any country want a pro team?
 
Jul 11, 2009
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auscyclefan94 said:
Why does any country want a pro team?

Outside of Kazakhstan does any country have one? (Astana have been based in Switzerland, Luxembourg as well as Kazakhstan BTW) With riders from around the world.
 
Jun 16, 2009
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53 x 11 said:
Outside of Kazakhstan does any country have one? (Astana have been based in Switzerland, Luxembourg as well as Kazakhstan BTW) With riders from around the world.

yes but countries have teams representing their riders even though some teams are not nessercarily based in their orginal country. no pro team can have 100% riders from the sponsors originating country.
 
Jul 11, 2009
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auscyclefan94 said:
yes but countries have teams representing their riders even though some teams are not nessercarily based in their orginal country. no pro team can have 100% riders from the sponsors originating country.

I recognize some of these words but in this order no sense they make to me.
 
Mar 3, 2009
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53 x 11 said:
Why does Australia need one?

Bingo. As an Australian I'd love to see an Australian ProTour team as much as any of my compatriots. However I reject - absolutely - the the ranting and raving that goes on about this as if it's the accomplishment that will stamp our mark on the world of cycling.

Look at what's happened in the last week: three new Australian Giro d'Italia stage winners, Tour of Japan stage win and overall lead, Tour of California stage victory and the world's fastest lead out man (an Australian) leading his charge to another California stage win. And that's only the men's results.

We're doing it right. There's nothing missing from the equation.

Sure, ProTour or Professional Continental team would be nice - but what really matters is what we're currently, effectively doing.

Cheers
Greg Johnson
 
I don't like the idea of these quasi-national teams. If you have a team built around the cream of the Aussie crop, it simply wouldn't function. You'd have too many competing goals. Is it not better to have some riders riding for Belgian classics teams and some riders racing for Italian climbing teams and some riders racing for Anglo-American sprinters' teams? That way every Australian talent can go to a team that suits them, and they'll be better off than with an approach where you try and reconcile all of it into one package. Take Sky as an example - they came into the sport with bold announcements about Tour de France winners within five years. And they spent most of the first half of the season as a sprint train with the occasional piece of TTT action. You can't have it both ways, and if they want to send their sprinters to the Tour, then they have to take the focus off of Wiggins, and Wiggins will need the support.

Also, there is the problem that has already been mentioned, of how distant Australia is from most of the other hotbeds of cycling. It will be a challenge to persuade a sponsor that a bit of exposure at lesser European races is worth it, but then how are you to expect the invites to the major events without racing in the smaller ones? Are getting good results in the Tour de Langkawi and the Asian Tour events going to persuade the ASO to include a team ahead of a team getting good results in the European events*? Also you then have to persuade race organisers that you'll bring more to the table than a more local team, pay up huge travel fees (just ask why the Colombian teams are so infrequently over here competing, since they always do well when they do) or base the team in Europe. And if it's based in Europe and builds on an international base of riders, since with the possible exception of Euskaltel (case in point: Romain Sicard) no team is truly monoglot, is it really an 'Australian ProTour team'? Isn't it then just as Australian as Marco Polo is Chinese?

*leaving the money debate and BMC vs. Vacansoleil totally alone for a minute here...
 
Mar 11, 2009
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auscyclefan94 said:
After the success of Australians over the past years and the recent wins of lloyd, evans, goss, lancaster and porte leading the young riders jersey;

Would they have all been on one team, Lloyd and Goss prolly wouldn't have won their stages.
 
Oct 29, 2009
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auscyclefan94 said:
yes but countries have teams representing their riders even though some teams are not nessercarily based in their orginal country. no pro team can have 100% riders from the sponsors originating country.

Euskatel is probably as close to an excpetion to your rule as you can get.

They are from a region or unacknowledged nation depending on your pov. And they get pretty close to that 100% (again, depending on your pov how well they fit the requirements).
 
Francois the Postman said:
Euskatel is probably as close to an excpetion to your rule as you can get.

They are from a region or unacknowledged nation depending on your pov. And they get pretty close to that 100% (again, depending on your pov how well they fit the requirements).

Of course they make an exception for their best rider. Strangely enough it's actually Sammy (Asturias) that they make a bit of an exception for and not Sicard, since he's from the French part of the Basque country.
 
Mar 11, 2009
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To answer the question one must first look at the questioner.
There must be a reason why Aussies are so jingoistic? Perhaps to compensate for something? Who knows.
Lets just sit back in awe of their awesomeness..
The sheer greatness.. c'est magnifique.
 
A

Anonymous

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You'd have to pattern the kit after this to do your heritage proud:

496729037FFkTdW_ph.jpg


That is an Aussie prison uni.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Australia "needs" (would like) one as an extra level of development between domestic/continental pro and protour level. Yes of course if you are good enough you'll make the leap anyway. If you are Milram for example, why have an Australian domestique who doesn't look like ever progressing eyond solid domestique, instead of a German one? Its just about getting more guys to the top level, if you can get more Matt Hayman's, you'll end up with more Cadel Evans.

As for why not...I picked up a Daily telegraph today, widest read news paper in Sydney...the back 10 pages were related to rugby league, in the paper that reported (and they did) the victories of Matt Goss and Brett Lancaster, there were about 30 square centimetres of coverage, including a plug for viewing the ToC on Eurosport, listing Tom Boonen as the Current world champion.

To be naming rights sponsor in League or a Protour team is about the same, infact the League team might be cheaper.
 
Apr 14, 2010
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Greg Johnson said:
Bingo. As an Australian I'd love to see an Australian ProTour team as much as any of my compatriots. However I reject - absolutely - the the ranting and raving that goes on about this as if it's the accomplishment that will stamp our mark on the world of cycling.

Look at what's happened in the last week: three new Australian Giro d'Italia stage winners, Tour of Japan stage win and overall lead, Tour of California stage victory and the world's fastest lead out man (an Australian) leading his charge to another California stage win. And that's only the men's results.

We're doing it right. There's nothing missing from the equation.

Sure, ProTour or Professional Continental team would be nice - but what really matters is what we're currently, effectively doing.

Cheers
Greg Johnson

As an Aussie, I'd like to say +1 to this, and ditto to Libertine Seguros' reply about quasi-national teams that don't really work, not to mention the value of letting each rider find a team that specialises in what they do best.

That said, I guess what the OP was on about is something like Sky, a team mostly made up of dudes from one country, and sponsorship from a big aussie multinational (otherwise it'd just be weird, aussies en-masse promoting a US company for eg.).

Fly V are damn close to that now anyway, and rather than hoping all the current pro-tour stars would just drop their existing relationships for some newly created team (yeah right), I'm rooting (in the barracking sense you know ;) for Ben & Phil and the boys to keep doing what they're doing, which is...an amazing job.
 
Jan 30, 2010
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Aussies often complain that our riders don't get a fair go (often called "a fair shake of the sauce bottle" by our seroiusly-lacking-my-respect-Prime Minister) in cycling because team politics. Examples include Davis ommission for Tom Boonen, LLoyd not in the 2008 Tour team, Evans quietly nudged out of Silence-Lotto top job by Omega Pharma CEO.

If we had our own team, we would be no better than the teams that favour their riders over the talent. Cycling should be based on talent, not internal politics, but the reality is it's quite simply based on economics. Sponsors pay top dollar for the best exposure and they prefer local riders that have a good rep.

There is almost zero multinational companies that would benefit from investing in an aussie Pro-Tour or equivalent quality team. They get exposure from 10pm to 2am in July... that's about it. Only the hardcore fans (a very very small market) will see them other than that.

The only company that might gain is Virgin/Fly V, because Branson has huge interests in the aussie market, and his brand is global anyway.

To be honest, the only person who would benefit from an all aussie team is Cadel Evans because the GT team would be full of riders willing to work for him (or maybe not considering the worlds team preferred Gerrans)

Either way, my conclusion is, a team should only arise if a willing sponsor is going to put up the money, not because a nation feels nudged out of a european sport. If the aussie govt wasted their money sponsoring a pro team then the general tax payer should not be happy.

If Fly V go Pro-Tour then good on em' but don't take all the good aussies off the many teams out there because as someone already mentioned, there would be less results for us! Lloyd (hills) and Goss (flats) would probably be on a GC team supporting Evans and not have a role like they did last week...

To add, why do we actually need a team? What's wrong with having many talented aussies on many different teams?

I like teams that have a wide selection of talent from all countries because it shows they chase talent, not just sponsorship ambitions. Columbia and Cervelo in 2009 are pretty good examples of chosing great talents from all over the world. Teams like Milram and Lampre that focus on national talent weren't the ones with the results were they?
 
Inner Peace said:
I like teams that have a wide selection of talent from all countries because it shows they chase talent, not just sponsorship ambitions. Columbia and Cervelo in 2009 are pretty good examples of chosing great talents from all over the world. Teams like Milram and Lampre that focus on national talent weren't the ones with the results were they?

Of course, sometimes that isn't really the teams' choice, and sometimes they make it a mission without really expecting anything to that end; vis-à-vis, Milram are the only German Pro team at the moment, and as a result they become the first port of call for many German riders; localised sponsors may demand localised riders to suit their commitments, examples being Xacobeo-Galiçia, Contentpolis-AMPO (AMPO being a Basque company, so many Basques were signed) and Brétagne-Schuller (this regionalist approach is more notable in Spain than elsewhere, perhaps because of the crushing of regionalism by Franco leading to it becoming more vibrant than elsewhere after his death). Others still have outside requests from their sponsors - while I like and rate Arnold Jeannesson, you can't convince me that most of the French riders on Caisse d'Epargne are anything more than a sop to the team's French sponsor. And look at the way Saunier Duval was split between Spaniards and Italians.

Teams like Columbia and Cervélo are global brands, and that gives them more scope to be a metropolitan, truly polyglot team. In that respect, Fly V is your best option because a team perceived as regional to a region completely isolated from the rest of the cycling community may stand less chance of being invited to races than a polyglot team with a multinational sponsor (Branson of course has interests all over the world) and an Australian base - having a strong Belgian rider will help get invites to Belgian races, a couple of Spaniards will get you invites to Spanish stage races, and so on.
 
Feb 18, 2010
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Inner Peace said:
Aussies often complain that our riders don't get a fair go (often called "a fair shake of the sauce bottle" by our seroiusly-lacking-my-respect-Prime Minister) in cycling because team politics. Examples include Davis ommission for Tom Boonen, LLoyd not in the 2008 Tour team, Evans quietly nudged out of Silence-Lotto top job by Omega Pharma CEO.

Davis is nowhere near as good as Boonen and Evans left (some would say screwed over) Lotto all by himself. I'll give you Lloyd, don't remember the details on that one.
 
May 12, 2010
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Having a national team could help to raise the profile of Australia as a worthy racing country, even beyond the feats of individual racers already succeeding. This could help raise the profile of races in Australia such as the TDU, even when Lance is not racing it. This is extremely important for the national growth of the sport.

To be truly international bike racing might need to break the shackles of Euro-centrism. Maybe an alternative racing program with major races in half a dozen countries around the world could be created. Naturally the historic and worthy races should also be retained. These would probably have to be run parallel, and maybe riders might need to make a choice between them.

As it stands all the people of Australia pretty much only see their countrymen ride in the wee hours of the morning, and with them the USA and English people see them through the screen in their living room. Many are happy to make the sacrifice and enjoy it immensely anyway, but surely as the global social uptake of cycling is occuring so should the entire racing program also shift to reflect this.

Hmm, this post evolved as it was written and so veered off topic. It really deserves a topic on its own. But just think, to all of you that live outside Europe. How cool would it be to see the top teams and riders of the day compete in your locale, such as through the highlands of Scotland, striving over the Rockies, and of course zooming over the curves and hills of good old Tassie, pelting through Queenstown, Targa, Tamar Valley and how awesome would a finish be on top of Mt Wellington. How flaming cool would that be.

And in each country people would be cheering their national team, national riders on other teams and their favourite international riders. All the thousands of immigrants (Italians, Dutch, .....) in those countries could pull out their old national colours and have even more to cheer along.

Controversial, and sure to upset some die-hard Classics fans. And those European races might lose out a bit (though not from their local fan base), but top-level cycling needs to go International. It must:
- to reflect the International representation on the teams
- to increase interest and profile in the countries around the world
- to increase financial investment in the sport
- essentiality to make it egalitarian
- to let people outside of Europe enjoy top-level cycling in front of them, to allow them to taste the sweat of the breakaweay riders striving in anguish for that fleeting moment of glory, to feel the thrum of the peleton passing by, to see the whites of the eyes of the sprinters as the give their all to get over that line, to ride the adrenaline waves of riders playing cat and mouse up a steep climb, and yell and scream as with thousands of others simply enjoying the moment.

I'd like that in my country, in my home state. Wouldn't you?