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- While the future of the Boels-Dolmans women’s team looks uncertain as it searches for new sponsors, Team Jumbo-Visma reveals it may soon launch its own women’s pro cycling team.
- According to Team Jumbo-Visma’s managing director, Richard Plugge, creating a women’s team would fall in line with their broader goal of promoting the sport of cycling.
Netherlands-based Team Jumbo-Visma is considering a launch of a women’s team at the highest level of pro cycling. According to managing director Richard Plugge, the Dutch team has been considering it for some time, but said the time has not yet been ripe for their own women’s pro cycling team.
“Next season, one of the largest teams in the women’s peloton, Boels-Dolmans, will lose both main sponsors,” Plugge told Bicycling Netherlands. “Perhaps the team will disappear, maybe there will be a new start/they will start over, but riders will probably leave. In any case, we feel that there is room for us to create our own women’s team from the ground up.”
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Team Boels-Dolmans, which is also based in the Netherlands, on September 23, 2019, that it will be looking for new sponsors as its sponsorships with Boels Rental and Dolmans Landscaping will come to an end. Team manager Danny Stam recently that they have until the end of April to realistically find a new sponsor. Stam also confirmed that while Boels-Dolmans has not yet discussed anything with Jumbo-Visma, and they aren’t currently looking to partner with a men’s team, they are open to ideas.
Boels-Dolmans has been one of the most successful women’s teams in the past several years, featuring riders like Anna van der Breggen, the winner of last year’s Amgen Tour of California Women’s Race and La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, and Chantal Blaak, the 2018 winner of the women’s Amstel Gold Race and the 2018 Dutch national road race champion.
Apart from the intention to enter the women’s peloton over the long term, Plugge can’t share many details about the team’s plans.
It’s clear, however, that the creation of its own women’s team is in line with the path that Team Jumbo-Visma has embarked on with the introduction/advent of its own development team and the creation of the , which encourages youth to start cycling through partnering with schools and local cycling organizations.
“The Academy often talks about the achievement of boys’ dreams, but we are just as committed to girls’ dreams,” Plugge said. “The underlying idea is that we want to share our love and passion for cycling with more people in the Netherlands. We can do that through the Academy, but also in the long run with our own women’s team.”
