This season was supposed to be the last for the mighty Team Sky, which for ten years has been the largest, richest and most successful cycling teams in the world. With the sale of mediegiganten Sky for us Comcast ended an era, and it was reported in december, but now it appears that Comcast is ready to shoot the money in the team also in 2020.
The Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport reports according to nyhedssitet Cyclist, that Comcast has assured teammanager David Brailsford on the continued financial support of yet another season. There should be about 70 percent of the team’s current budget, which is reported to be at 300 million crowns.
It is unknown, whether the promise applies to the team’s total budget or the proportion of the total budget, as the Cloud has so far accounted for. Ekstra Bladet have unsuccessfully contacted the team’s technical director Carsten Jeppesen, for a comment.
Is the Gazzetta’s information to the believers, and the team will be able to continue in 2020 as an economic heavyweight in the field, as the team reduced the budget will still be significantly above the average in the World Tour field.
Team Sky operated for a year without restrictions in the budget, and the extra year will give Brailsford a far greater chance of finding a new sponsor who will commit themselves in the long term.
One option could be the canadian-israeli sugar daddy Sylvan Adams, who for his own enjoyment driver prokontinentalholdet Israel Cycling Academy. The billionaire Adams is passionate amatørrytter and has, like top åndsfæller as Oleg Tinkov (Team Tinkoff), Igor Makarov (Team Katusha) and Zdenek Bakala (Team Quick Step) created its own team of pure love for the sport rather than the economic sense.
In the Velonews has Adams confirmed that he, on behalf of its prokontinentalhold has negotiated with several World Tour teams about a possible merger, as he targeted going after participation in the Tour de France by 2020. A sure ticket to the Tour is a World Tour license, and the easiest way to get the fingers in such a is to take over a team that has a in advance.
– There is more discussions with more than a World Tour team, says Adams to Velonews. He will neither confirm or deny that Team Sky has come in his reflection.
A fusion of the same nature took place prior to this season, as the Polish prokontinentalhold CCC merged with the american World Tour team BMC. The team is now running ahead at cycling’s highest level in the Polish team’s colors and under its name.
Israel Cycling Academy, which has the Danish Nicki Sorensen hired as sports director, have in this season rearmed and with 30 riders, the largest team in the field. The aim is to place themselves in the top two on the leaderboard at the end of the year, which, according to the new rules in the sport will ensure the team access to run the three Grand Tours next year.
Sylvan Adams has made his fortune on real estate deals in Canada. He is the son of a Holocaust survivor, who settled in Canada after the war. Through-out his life he has felt closely linked to Israel, to which he emigrated in 2015.
He has donated money to many different sports, but it is cycling, there is his heart almost. So he was a driving force behind Israel’s bid for a Giro-start, and he is said to have shot over a half a billion dollars into the campaign that successfully brought over to Israel last year.
