Anuar Manan winning his second consecutive stage at the Jelajah Malaysia 2009. He will be looked to to bring in some victories
David McQuaid and David McCann are in the final stages of putting together a new UCI Continental team to contest the 2013 season, it has emerged.
Stickybottle understands the team will ride mainly on the Asian circuit but will also ride in Europe later in the year. The team will be registered in Azerbaijan and is called the ‘Synergy Baku Cycling Project’.
Former An Post-Sean Kelly rider Connor McConvey will ride for the team, which will be sponsored by Synergy Group & ATA Holdings.
McQuaid has been working with partners in Azerbaijan in recent months to quickly get the plans in place in time for the coming season. McCann, who has raced on the Asian circuit for many years and had announced his retirement from international racing, will be a performance analyst and coach at the new team and will ride some races.
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Former Team Sky rider Jeremy Hunt is on board as sporting director.
The team’s first big assignment in the coming season will be the Tour de Langkawi, which McQuaid has worked on for a number of years organising stage ends and which McCann has ridden a number of times.
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Plans for the team are emerging as Azerbaijan moves to develop its cycling scene. In the capital city of Baku an Olympic velodrome and bicycle park are being constructed in the Baku White City project. The new team is intended to be the public face of those developments.
McQuaid’s company Velosolutions will have a significant part in the team. He will be technical director while his colleague Julia Dobernig will be logistics manager.
The company, which is based in Dublin, will be responsible for the running of the project including administration for the team, sourcing and managing equipment and sponsors, acquiring race invitations and planning race programme logistics.
McCann will be team captain, performance analyst and coach. Hunt, the former British national champion and Tour de France rider, will be ‘head sporting director’. Iranian Daryoush Mohammedzadeh will be an assistant sporting director.
There will be 16 riders in the team, which is finalising its registration with the UCI at present.
We have reaction coming up immediately from some of those involved.
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