Six Irish riders will be part of the An Post Grant Thornton Sean Kelly team in 2010, maintaining a strong Ireland connection despite a change to Belgian registration.
Five of those riders were announced this week, with David O’Loughlin, Paídi O’Brien, Mark Cassidy, Ronan McLaughlin and Matt Brammeier all returning. The only change is Brammeier’s nationality; he declared for Ireland in recent months, then went on to finish an excellent fourth in the scratch race in the recent Manchester World Cup.
Stephen Gallagher will leave the team as he wants to be based with his family in Ireland. A new addition is Connor McConvey who, until now, has predominately been a mountainbike competitor. He has also done some road racing in the past and will put a much greater emphasis on this now.
General manager Kurt Bogaerts confirmed this week that the team will register as a Belgian squad in 2010. He explained that as an Irish squad based in Belgium, UCI rules mean that the team was unable to take part in 2.HC and 1.HC-ranked events there, thus meaning it missed out on rides in events such as the Tour of Belgium.
Similarly, it was unable to ride national events, meaning that races at the high and low end of the scale were off limits. The change in registration will add a large number of events to the racing programme.
FBD Insurance Rás stage winner Niko Eeckhout will remain with the team for at least one more season, then take up a role as a directeur sportif. He won six races for the team in 2009.
The riders will have a training camp from the 14th to 21st of December in Calpe, Spain.
Bogaerts spoke to Irishcycling.com on Thursday, giving a good insight into the current situation with the team and the plans for 2010.
David O'Loughlin
Shane Stokes: First off, Kurt, what are the plans for the team?
Kurt Bogaerts: The team is finalised. From the Irish side, we have Matt Brammeier, who has become an Irish riders, and then Connor McConvey is joining the team.
Paídi O’Brien, Mark Cassidy, David O’Loughlin and Ronan McLaughlin are staying from this year, so we will have six Irish guys.
The English rider Mark McNally is also joining the team in connection with the Sky team , through Shane Sutton. He is a young guy that they want to put in the team and given some possibilities to grow.
We spoke with Sky and they said that the programme is good on the team to place a young guy. It would give him a step between the races for young riders and joining the ProTour team.
We also have a few new riders as well – those details will be announced soon. Of this year’s squad, Steven Van Vooren is going to Topspoort for two years. Jef Peeters is also leaving the team.
The ambitions are the same – we will try to do our best in Ireland in the Ras, the Tour of Ireland and the Nationals.
Kurt Bogaerts (r) and Niko Eeckhout, the team's sprinter
In the Belgian Classics we will really try to score with Niko [Eeckhout]. I have tried to build an aggressive team that will ride well in big races.
SS: Were you happy with Niko this year?
KB: Yes, it was a big success this year. I think one of the best things the team did was to sign him – he is such a motivated guy, and he won six races. One of those was on television, and another time he was second in a race that was also televised. That is really big for a small team like us.
He also won a stage in the Ras and got the points jersey. These things are also very important for the team. He wanted to come to Ireland. He has a lot of experience and has good advice for the young guys. It couldn’t be more positive.
I think he will be more successful next year…he is settled, he is very good in the head.
SS: The nationality of the team will change to being Belgian – what is the reason for that?
KB: Well, the reason is as an an Irish team, we had only two UCI races and no hors category races. There was not really an advantage to stay Irish . Becoming a Belgian team makes the calendar a lot better. It creates more races in the early season and also, as we are based in Belgian, we can do smaller races too. That is more positive for the younger guys on the team…for example, I can do smaller races with guys like Connor McConvey and bring them up a level.
I made this decision on a purely organisational basis. I have six Irish guys, the same as last year. The mix of nationalities is the same. I just think it is a big plus for the programme – what is difficult for a Continental team is to make a good programme. The rules are as they are, we just work with the rules.
There are a lot of UCI races, a lot of HC races in Belgium. Now we can do them.
SS: Can you explain the rules?
KB: Well, last year we couldn’t do the Tour of Belgian as it was a hors category race. The continental teams from the country can do it, though, so now we are able to take part.
In the opening week of the season there is the Omloop Het Neuwsblad [formerly Het Volk] – we are eligible for that now, and the same applies to the Three Days of De Panne.
We have ten or twenty more races, and at no extra cost as we are based in Belgium. That makes the programme a lot better, so I can take more riders on the team.
We have races of a lower level and races of a higher level…until now, we were not allowed do the national races here. In Ireland we could do it, but not in Belgium. If you want to do a small race for the young guys in the team, you can’t do it.
There’s two ways of looking at it. Being an Irish team was positive as there are not many Irish teams. There are so many Belgian teams, we thought that maybe it would be better to stay Irish. But I think everybody knows that this is an Irish team with an Irish sponsor that is registered in Belgium.
I think the function of the team will stay the same. It is an Irish team - we will work with the rules in getting to what is best for the riders and the development of the team.
SS: Was there any concern from the sponsors when you told them you were going to change the country of registration?
KB: No, because we explained the situation from the start. They saw what happened this year; they had really hoped that we could do the Tour of Belgium this year, as it is on television and it is also very good with the VIP situation. Donal [Connell] from An Post was there last year and he invited sponsors. So he saw that we were missing out on that.
He asked if there was any way around it…I said yes, there are two ways to do it. You can go Pro Continental but that would involve a much higher budget, which is difficult to get at the moment. Or you can do it this way. I think what is important is that we still have the Irish riders we wanted in the team.
We went for every guy that we had hoped for. We also tried to get Sam Bennett, Sean Downey and Philip Lavery on the team – that didn’t work out, they chose to do another year elsewhere. But we went for every Irish guy, including Connor McConvey who signed two days ago.
That is what the sponsor wanted us to do. It was important that I could keep guys like Paídi, Mark, David O’Loughlin – it was good that they could stay riding for a team.
But I don’t think it matters where it is registered. We need to just respect that we are an Irish team.
SS: M. Donnelly and Grant Thornton were part of the sponsorship this year. An Post will stay, but what about those others?
KB: At the moment, M. Donnelly are not, but Grant Thornton have confirmed that they are the second sponsor of the team. Designer Group also continues – it will be mainly the same sponsors as this year. One difference is that we will have SRAM next year. So, the riders will be using Principia bikes with SRAM.
SS: Is the budget similar to this year?
KB: Similar, yes, with longer-term contracts with some sponsors. Some give a little less, some a little more. It is a similar budget.
SS: What is the long-term aim of the team?
KB: The long term is that we try to make a step up, to go Pro Continental. We will try also to keep working with the youth. We want to continue with the Academy. Cycling Ireland made a decision not to do it, but will have decided to keep it as we want to also look after the youth. Still every guy is welcome is Belgium, we will try to look after them as it is part of our future too as an Irish team.
That is why I thought it was important to get Connor in the team. I hope sooner or later Bennett, Lavery and Downey and whichever riders are coming are also part of the team.
That is what we are hoping for. I think that is the goal of the team – it’s not because we have an Irish sponsor, but with a guy like Sean Kelly involved he wants to create a future for Irish cycling. That is still the main goal.
SS: As regards going Pro Continental, when do you want to achieve that by?
KB: Well, we will have been three years with An Post at the end of next year and I think then it is time to do the step.
I think we are also depending on the economy to find bigger budgets…ideally next year.
The combination would still be there…we would have a smaller team under and then a bigger team. We will make the pyramid a step higher but the step underneath will stay.
SS: Will Connor McConvey be doing road racing only, or will he also do some MTB racing?
KB: Well, we have a training camp from the 14th to 21st of December in Calpe. He is going to do more road racing than he did, that’s a fact. But it’s undecided if he will stop completely with the mountain bike. We didn’t cover those details yet. We are going to do that at the training camp together with Sean, and create his future. We will see how that goes and where his feelings are.
I know Connor through the national team and I worked with him at the worlds before. I know that he has a great potential and now it is our job to get the potential in the right place, and so that he feels 100 percent in it. That is what we are going to try to do.
But it is undecided – I think he is good on the mountainbike, so maybe we will make a combination and support with the programme. We could maybe work towards some goals like the Europeans and the worlds on the road. We will make some goals with him and definitely that he has an idea at the end of the year that his future is on the mountainbike or on the road bike.
We will give him a lot of possibilities on different roads – uphill, flat races, windy races, the climbs in the Alps, so he has an idea what kind of rider he is. You can call it an experimental year.
SS: Where will the team riders stay next year?
KB: In Merchtem, in the same house we were based before.
SS: Cycling Ireland said it was going to let the house go. Does that mean the team now must pay for the rent of the place?
KB: Well, we always paid the rent for our riders. There was a misunderstanding out there – we always paid for our riders to stay in the Academy. For sure, we will keep renting a part of the house and what the owner of the house does with the other part is unsure.
Maybe there will be an agreement that the Irish guys can still come on the same basis as before to the house. That is what we would like to achieve. If possible, we would like the academy to stay within the building, if possible.
