Trek Bicycle, in conjunction with Leopard True Racing, announced its co-sponsorship of the new cycling Team Leopard-Trek in Luxembourg on January 7, 2011. The team grew out of the Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project. Enovos, a Luxembourg-based natural gas company, will be the other major sponsor.
Team Leopard-Trek Roster
Leopard-Trek will feature high-profile riders Fränk and Andy Schleck, both of Luxembourg, as well as classics rider and time trial champion Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland. Perennial workhorse Jens Voigt and sprinter Stuart O'Grady are also on the 29-man roster. The Schlecks have made names for themselves in the European classics and the grand tours over the last few years, with Andy finishing second in the last two editions of the Tour de France. Cancellara has been on fire for the better part of a decade, winning numerous classics and tour stages in addition to being four-time world time trial champion and the current Olympic gold medalist in that discipline.
The team will be run by Brian Nygaard, a Dane whose holding company is called Leopard. Nygaard formerly worked for the British Team Sky, and before that for Bjarne Riis’ Saxobank. Kim Anderson, who is also Danish, was Riis’ sports director for many years and will be the Leopard-Trek team manager.
Team Leopard-Trek was immediately ranked the No.1 team in the world, according to the International Cycling Union’s points system, which is based on team riders’ performances over the preceding year.
Trek's Cycling Heritage
Trek, headquartered in Waterloo, Wisconsin, has sponsored teams that have dominated the major European tours in the last dozen years, with such prominent riders as Lance Armstrong, Roberto Contador, and others. Trek’s campaign-hardened race department will play an active role in the new team, supplying day-to-day technical advice as well as, of course, bicycles and cycling gear. “Ultimately, we’re driven by the idea that we can make riders go faster,” said Trek’s Race Department Manager, Scott Daubert, in the press release of January 7. “We’ve developed a solid knowledge base that we have continued to build upon and expanded for more than a decade.”
Trek rose to world-class cycling prominence along with the iconic Lance Armstrong. Armstrong first rode a Trek for the US Postal Service team in 1997, which in 2004 became Team Discovery Channel, and later morphed into the acrimonious, though successful, Team Astana. When Astana imploded after the 2009 season, Armstrong and his long-time sports director Johan Bruyneel formed Team Radio Shack, which managed to put Armstrong on the podium of – but not win – the 2009 Tour.
With the Armstrong era drawing to an end (actually, its second end), Trek is no doubt motivated to reclaim the grand-tour dominance it has grown used to since the late '90s, while perhaps widening its appeal to the European market. Assembling an instant powerhouse like Team Leopard-Trek should go a long way toward accomplishing those goals.
Join the Conversation