From this year’s Tour de France, Alpecin-Fenix will be rebranded as Alpecin-Deceuninck, this is a move to improve their overall budget as they set their eyes on new targets-such as the UCI World Tour. Increasing a team’s budget comes naturally and this new “Banner” seems like the next logical step for the overall development of the team.
Right now, the team is completely bought away with the Giro, and while every stage win counts, the team has to aim ahead. On their rest day, Alpecin-Fenix manager Philip Roodhooft said that they have now applied for a WorldTour 2023 license.
Currently Deceuninck is a sub-sponsor of the team and after Tour De France 2022, they will replace the Fenix as the new naming partner. This change will be taken into effect immediately for both the men’s and women’s squads. Team manager Philip Roodhooft said:
The WorldTour is the next logical step for the team. It will increase our budget to make us become a better team than we are today. Moving to the major league of cycling is a big step for us as a team, but also for Deceuninck.
Since they have applied for the UCI WorldTour license, they will easily meet the criteria as they are currently placed at the seventh position in the UCI rankings for the last three years. As a result of their exemplary performance, the team has been getting automatic invitations to WorldTour races, they have even been titled as the Best-Ranked Pro Team in the UCI rankings.
Roodhooft said:
We see it as a consequence of the growth we had now, and winning the ranking of the ProTeams is not a given thing. We have been very happy to do it two times in a row, but it creates a pressure. We’re not afraid of pressure but this gives us a chance to work on the longer term.
This shift is great from a strategic point of view, even the team’s Top Gun Mathieu Van Der Poel has deemed it so. Currently Van Der Poel is enjoying the team leader’s position as he helms the team for Giro d’Italia. The team has enjoyed high-level success thanks to Van Der Poel as he won the Tour of Flanders twice and is currently leading the team for the Giro. The Dutchman believes that this new partnership will allow the team to attract more talent.
Deceuninck was a title sponsor to Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl before joining in with Alpecin-Fenix. For now they have a three-year commitment with Alpecin-Fenix which will run though the end of 2025. This current contract also follows in with Van Der Poel’s contract with Alpecin-Fenix.
Roodhooft seems confident enough about the new change, the thinks this shift will open doors to a lot of opportunities.
For us, it’s a coincidence, otherwise both contracts would have been made at the same time. It’s linked to the next WorldTour license.
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Featured Image Via YouTube/Cycling Pro Net
