Astana’s Financial Alert

On the same day Michael Valgren won the Omloop, Astana team staff got an email saying their employer was waiting for sponsorship cash and the team later confirmed it is in financial difficulty. This followed news on Friday night on Vesti.kz where team manager Alexandr Vinokourov warned his team had not received its funding for 2018 and was paying travel costs out of “savings”.

The team’s not bankrupt but management must be nervous: why make this public because even if the promised cash shows up it will only deter riders from renewing or joining the squad?

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The Moment The Omloop Was Won

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Michael Valgren has gone solo and Sep Vanmarcke gives chase in the final straight. The strongest rider didn’t win, the strongest team did.

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Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Preview

Greg Van Avermaet, Omloop 2016

The season goes up a notch with the start of the cobbled classics this Saturday and racing that supplies action for hours rather thanks to the tricky course and the ferocity of the peloton as it twists around the Flemish countryside. More than ever the Omloop is a mini Tour of Flanders and all the better for it.

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The New Omloop and The Old Ronde

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This Saturday is openingsweekend and the start of the cobbled classics season with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. It’s an old race but a copycat contest too that has found its place on the calendar by constantly frontrunning the Tour of Flanders. So much so that this year’s Omloop poaches the beloved old roads of the Ronde.

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Pro Conti Explained

Having covered the Pro Continental team sponsors yesterday a reader emailed in to ask what makes a team “Pro Conti”. Good point, the label gets used a lot but what does it really mean? How does a team get this status, which races can take part in and what is a typical budget? All this and more explained below.

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Pro Conti Team Sponsors

You might know what the likes of Trek, Sky or Sunweb do but do you know Aqua Blue from Aqua Protect, CCC from Crelan, Verandas Willems from Veranclassic? I didn’t and set out to find out what all the sponsors of cycling’s second tier teams are about. While the World Tour is fixed with 18 teams, the Pro Continental ranks have grown by five teams to reach a total of 27 squads this year. It’s an interesting glimpse into the sport with health insurance, hedge funds and law firms sponsoring US teams; rural suppliers of verandas and animal feed in France and Belgium. All share the same struggle to get noticed with Pro Conti teams winning just four World Tour races last year.

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Team Victory Rankings

With a brief pause in the racing today, here’s the first look at team standings in 2018 and as ever a chance to look at the squads and stories around them.

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Grand Depart 2016 Costs and Benefits

Mark Cavendish Utah Beach 2016

Want to host the Tour de France? If so then France’s state auditor the Cour des Comptes, “the court of accounts”, has issued a report into le grand départ from 2016 that gives us acloser look at the finances, business and practicalities of hosting the Tour de France.

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Desert Algebra

Dubai Tour 2018

The branch of maths called algebra gets its name from al jabr, Arabic for “reunifying broken parts”. The Tour of Dubai certainly offers formulaic racing where each day the breakaway is reunited with the peloton for an inevitable sprint finish.

Is there another sport where next to nothing happens for hours only for furious action in final seconds? This isn’t new to cycling fans but the Tour of Dubai seems to embody this concept. Perhaps this is a race that nobody is supposed to watch anyway?

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