So fell the pieces in place: Riis takes control over large groups

Ann McDonald

08 January 2020 Wednesday 11:00

84 Reads

So fell the pieces in place: Riis takes control over large groups

the Rumors have buzzing throughout the fall, and they turned out to speak the truth: Bjarne Riis is back as team leader at cycling's highest level.

at a press conference At Hotel d'angleterre in Copenhagen on Wednesday, presented the Riis himself as co-owner of the south african World Tour-team NTT Pro Cycling. He will be included in the daily work as a senior athletic leader, which presses Lars Michaelsen, who is employed as senior sports director, a step down in the hierarchy.

As part of the ownership group of the Virtu Cycling Group, which acquired a third of the company behind the great cycling teams, get Riis decisive influence on the team's development in the future. The other owners of Virtu Cycling Group is the billionaire Lars Seier Christensen, and the couple Jan Bech and Helle Andersen.

Everyone in the ownership group are expatriates, the team is registered in south Africa, and it is still half owned by the founder and the team leader Doug Ryder, but it seems to be supposed, that the team should appear as a Danish project, when the Tour de France kicks off in Copenhagen next year. As the World Tour team has NTT Pro Cycling, the right and duty to run the big stage races.

Article continues below pictures...
Bjarne Riis has become the new team leader. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix
Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix
the Process leading up to Wednesday's press conference has been slow and in recent months, there have been almost tight-fitting lid over the work, which has led to the acquisition of the team.

Since the end of september, when the rumor about Virtus interest of the team began to run, it has been immensely difficult to get the relevant people in the Virtu and on the NTT Pro Cycling in the speech.

Here and there was seeping, however, information out to the public, which kept the rumor alive, although as time went on became more and more unlikely that a takeover of the team could happen already for the 2020 season.

just a week ago did Lars Seier Christensen, in his new year speech on Facebook to make it clear that there was a chance that it would get good news in January. The built in doubt in the statements of witnesses about the intense work that has taken place, probably right up to the point, since Virtu Tuesday issued the invitation to the press conference.

Bjarne Riis' new team

NTT Pro Cycling is a south african cycling team, that was founded in 2007 under the name MTN.

in the Future will be Bjarne Riis, team manager of the team, which had a rærligt 2019 in terms of results.

learn more about the team here:

* team name: NTT Pro Cycling.

* Previous team names: MTN (2007), Team MTN (2008), MTN Cycling (2009), MTN-Energade (2010), MTN-Qhubeka (2011-2015), Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka (2016-2019).

* Founder: Douglas Ryder.

* Holdstatus: World Tour-team (since 2016)

* Number of wins 2019: 6

* Location on the leaderboard in 2019: Number 17 out of 18.

* the Team's big wins through time:

the Milan-San Remo in 2013 (Gerald Ciolek).

7 stage victories in the Tour de France (2 to Steve Cummings, 4 to Mark Cavendish and 1 to Edvald Boasson Hagen).

3 stage victories in the Vuelta a España (1 to Kristian Sbaragli and 2 to Ben King).

1 man in the Giro d'Italia (Omar Fraile)

* Best overall placings in the grand tours:

the Tour de France: 13.-space in the 2015 to Serge Pauwels.

Giro d'italia: 10.-space in 2016 for Kanstantsin Sivtsov.