“Remco hates Jumbo and they hate him”
After Superstar, is the Crown Prince also fleeing mega-fusion?
October 4, 2023, 2:03 p.m
In cycling there could be a major merger between the two top teams Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-Quick Step. What will become of the top stars Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel? The situation is confusing.
It’s as if Liverpool FC and Manchester City were to merge and form a team of superlatives in the future. Not possible? In cycling, such a construct is the hottest topic of conversation. The Dutch top racing team Jumbo-Visma, which won all three major tours this year (Tour, Giro, Vuelta), and the traditional Belgian team Soudal-Quick Step are in concrete discussions – with the result that there could be a big castling among the industry’s top stars. It would probably also open up new perspectives for the German racing team Bora-hansgrohe.
Former ski jumper Primoz Roglic, who won the Giro d’Italia for Jumbo this year, has already announced his departure after eight years. According to the Italian “Gazzetta dello Sport” his path leads to Bora-hansgrohe. It would be a big coup for team boss Ralph Denk, who has been building a team for the big tours for years.
With Roglic, the Bavarian would receive the missing piece of the puzzle, because the Slovenian is one of the best tour drivers in the world. The 33-year-old won the Spanish Vuelta three times and this year the Giro. He was also facing the big coronation at the Tour de France if his compatriot Tadej Pogacar hadn’t snatched the yellow jersey from him in a dramatic individual time trial on the penultimate day of 2020.
Evenepoel is aiming for the Tour victory, but where?
With Bora, Roglic could have another chance that he didn’t get at Jumbo-Visma. Because everything in the black and yellow is geared towards the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, who justified his status with his second tour triumph this year. Roglic is not exactly cheap. With the signing of three-time world champion Peter Sagan, team boss Denk had already landed a coup with complicated financing in 2017. Roglic wants to announce his new team after the Tour of Lombardy on Saturday.
The second big personality in this transfer haggle is Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian time trial world champion in the service of Soudal-Quick Step wants to attack the Tour for the first time next year – but certainly not as Vingegaard’s noble helper. Even former tour winner Geraint Thomas can hardly imagine that. “Remco hates Jumbo and Jumbo hates Remco,” the Welshman recently said in his Watts Occurring podcast.
It is quite possible that Evenepoel will take the place of 37-year-old Thomas at the Ineos racing team. Former tour winner and Eurosport expert Alberto Contador had already put this into circulation during the World Cup in Glasgow. Evenepoel currently has a contract with Soudal-Quick Step until 2026. If the two top teams merge, which would actually be more of a takeover by Jumbo-Visma, the 23-year-old could probably move on for free. A cycling agent already let the French sports newspaper “L’Equipe” know that Evenepoel could sign a contract ready to be signed within five minutes.
What role does Amazon play?
The British would be the logical address for Evenepoel. The former team of four-time champion Chris Froome offers the perfect environment for the attack on the Tour throne, only the top rider is still missing. Because Egan Bernal, Tour winner in 2019, is still far away from the top in the world since his bad training fall.
A merger of the two teams, which would then be called Soudal-Visma or vice versa, would not only have fans. Two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe would find it “sad” if his Soudal Quick Step team disappeared from the scene because it is “a team at the heart of cycling for many years with its own history.” This year alone there are 54 victories for the racing team, in which Marcel Kittel, Mark Cavendish and Tom Boonen once excelled.
The reason for a possible merger is the exit of co-sponsor Jumbo by the end of the 2024 season at the latest. The world association UCI has already warned the two racing teams to respect the current contracts in a possible deal. After all, it’s not just about 50 drivers, but also about the entire workforce. Amazon is now also being discussed as a possible sponsor. There can be further speculation in cycling.