Discovery in disarray.... ?

lwedge said:

Have they published their budget anywhere ?

lw

I don't know but there is more going on here than is published. Just my opinion.
It takes about 15 mil a year or so to fund a big team,but this one I am not sure about.

jhuskey said:

I don't know but there is more going on here than is published. Just my opinion.
It takes about 15 mil a year or so to fund a big team,but this one I am not sure about.

Yes, Astana must have diverted the bond money for the new Soccer stadium eh?

😄

lw

lwedge said:

Yes, Astana must have diverted the bond money for the new Soccer stadium eh?

😄

lw

Or they are being funded by outsourcing for "cycling futures".

Beppu stays with Discovery Channel, Benoit Joachim will leave Disco and will join.... Astana!

We knew Beppu would stay because DC asked Bruyneel to recruit a Japanese rider and they got Beppu. Also, Beppu won both the Japanese ITT and the Japanese road race national championships and is pretty prominent in Japan now for those additional accomplishments.

Also, that Bruneel is still hiring is confirmed by the numbers. 7 riders confirmed or probably to be shed/left/have retired (before taking account of riders whose status is unknown). They have hired far fewer than that so far.

Shed:
Beltran
Ace
Joachim
Probably Hammond (to TM potentially)

Left:
Hoste
van den Broeck

Retired:
Eki

Unclear status of next year:
Il Falco 🙁
Van Goolen
Max van H
M White

What's wrong with Popo? He's 70th on GC at the Tour of Poland currently. I appreciate he may not be expected to be in the top 10, but 70th? 😕

Il Falco: Astana (press rumours)
Max Van Heeswijk: Rabobank (100% sure, i know it from inside Rabo)
Hammond: T-Mobile (100% sure, i know it from inside TM)

musette said:

We knew Beppu would stay because DC asked Bruyneel to recruit a Japanese rider and they got Beppu. Also, Beppu won both the Japanese ITT and the Japanese road race national championships and is pretty prominent in Japan now for those additional accomplishments.

Also, that Bruneel is still hiring is confirmed by the numbers. 7 riders confirmed or probably to be shed/left/have retired (before taking account of riders whose status is unknown). They have hired far fewer than that so far.

Shed:
Beltran
Ace
Joachim
Probably Hammond (to TM potentially)

Left:
Hoste
van den Broeck

Retired:
Eki

Unclear status of next year:
Il Falco 🙁
Van Goolen
Max van H
M White

cyclingheroes said:

Max Van Heeswijk: Rabobank (100% sure, i know it from inside Rabo)
Hammond: T-Mobile (100% sure, i know it from inside TM)

I thought Van Heeswijk was already common knowledge. Didn't know about Hammond.

Transfer information of unknown accuracy can be found at
http://www.cyclingpost.com/protour/transfers06.shtml

Here is the DC section. Who is Meersman?:

Staying at the team: [font=Arial] George Hincapie (USA)
José Luis Rubiera Vigil (Esp)
Jurgen Van Goolen (Bel)
[/font]

Leaving the team in 2007: José Bento Azevedo Carvalho (Por) to Benfica
Manuel Beltran Martinez (Esp) to Liquigas
Roger Hammond (GBr) to T-Mobile Team
Leif Hoste (Bel) to Davitamon - Lotto
Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) to Astaná
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) to Davitamon - Lotto
Max van Heeswijk (Ned) to Rabobank
Joining the team in 2007: Levi Leipheimer (USA) from Gerolsteiner
Gianni Meersman (Bel)
Sergio Paulinho (Por) from Astaná
Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu) from Ag2r Prévoyance
Retires: Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus)
Uncertain: Michael Barry (Can)
Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn)
Volodymyr Bileka (Ukr)
Janez Brajkovic (Slo)
Tom Danielson (USA)
Stijn Devolder (Bel)
Vladimir Gusev (Rus)
Benoit Joachim (Lux)
Trent Lowe (Aus)
Egoi Martínez de Esteban (Esp)
Jason McCartney (USA)
Guennadi Mikhailov (Rus)
Benjamin Noval Gonzalez (Esp)
Pavel Padrnos (Cze)
Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)
Matthew White (Aus)

Benoit Joachim to Astana...

micron said:

Benoit Joachim to Astana...

Astana the worlds largest cycling team!

jhuskey said:

Astana the worlds largest cycling team!

Aren't they only allowed 30 riders per UCI rules? Something tells me they may be dumping the entire spanish element of the team after Puerto, and are signing the replacements for them right now.

jhuskey said:

Astana the worlds largest cycling team!

Astanashing !

Sounds like they are going crazy with a new toy.

Nice to see another part of the world support and sponsor a team.

lw

lwedge said:

Astanashing !

Sounds like they are going crazy with a new toy.

Nice to see another part of the world support and sponsor a team.

lw

You mean a team supporting part of the world.
I have some theories.

jhuskey said:

You mean a team supporting part of the world.
I have some theories.

Yes, okay, that's a much better way of putting it.😉

lw

[font=Verdana]Discovery have shot themselves in the foot... in attempt to protect their American interests of Hincapie and TommyD all the name riders are jumping ship in addition to other riders of note not wanting to join DC... who would want to ride for TommyD when he can barely hang on to the peleton on a flat stage... with a 10million euro budget Discovery have squandered chances all year in trying to protect these interests... and where did it get them ?[/font]

JRMDC said:

Transfer information of unknown accuracy can be found at
cyclingpost.comtransfers06.shtmlOpen ↗

Here is the DC section. Who is Meersman?:

Staying at the team: [font=Arial]George Hincapie (USA)
José Luis Rubiera Vigil (Esp)
Jurgen Van Goolen (Bel)
[/font]

Leaving the team in 2007: José Bento Azevedo Carvalho (Por) to Benfica
Manuel Beltran Martinez (Esp) to Liquigas
Roger Hammond (GBr) to T-Mobile Team
Leif Hoste (Bel) to Davitamon - Lotto
Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) to Astaná
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) to Davitamon - Lotto
Max van Heeswijk (Ned) to Rabobank
Joining the team in 2007: Levi Leipheimer (USA) from Gerolsteiner
Gianni Meersman (Bel)
Sergio Paulinho (Por) from Astaná
Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu) from Ag2r Prévoyance
Retires: Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus)
Uncertain: Michael Barry (Can)
Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn)
Volodymyr Bileka (Ukr)
Janez Brajkovic (Slo)
Tom Danielson (USA)
Stijn Devolder (Bel)
Vladimir Gusev (Rus)
Benoit Joachim (Lux)
Trent Lowe (Aus)
Egoi Martínez de Esteban (Esp)
Jason McCartney (USA)
Guennadi Mikhailov (Rus)
Benjamin Noval Gonzalez (Esp)
Pavel Padrnos (Cze)
Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)
Matthew White (Aus)

musette said:

What's wrong with Popo? He's 70th on GC at the Tour of Poland currently. I appreciate he may not be expected to be in the top 10, but 70th? 😕

In the words of the Verve - "The drugs don't work".

[font=Verdana]There has been a distinct decline in Discovery’s performances since Operation Puerto... strange that....[/font][font=Verdana][/font]

They are shedding the riders that are older and/or more expensive.There's nothing wrong with that approach. If their goal is to nurture a TdF winner, they will need at least a few years and that means they need younger accompanying riders.

whiteboytrash said:

In the words of the Verve - "The drugs don't work".

[font=Verdana]There has been a distinct decline in Discovery’s performances since Operation Puerto... strange that....[/font][font=Verdana][/font]

They were definitely off at the Tour. But there is little reason to think that Fuentes supplied them. My bet would be that Ferrari has his own vampire's lair somewhere and that Discovery just toned down the doping at the Tour because the heat was on. Of course, everyone seems to have topped off for the Vuelta.

whiteboytrash said:

[font=Verdana]Discovery have shot themselves in the foot... in attempt to protect their American interests of Hincapie and TommyD all the name riders are jumping ship in addition to other riders of note not wanting to join DC... who would want to ride for TommyD when he can barely hang on to the peleton on a flat stage... with a 10million euro budget Discovery have squandered chances all year in trying to protect these interests... and where did it get them ?[/font]

Losing Lief Hoste was stupid, but none of the others really matter. Savoldelli is a classy rider but getting old.

Should ditch Tom D. Beltran is schooling him.