Saint Michel-Mavic-Auber93 have set an end-of-September deadline on their hunt to discover a new monetary co-sponsor to switch Mavic or they could possibly be compelled to surrender their present Continental licence in 2025 briefly.
The crew are competing on the Tour de France Femmes the place crew supervisor Stéphane Javalet instructed Cyclingnews that if they can’t discover a monetary backer to switch Mavic quickly, the crew will proceed as an elite programme.
“We have till the tip of September, roughly. If we do not discover a co-sponsor, it could possibly be tough for our girls’s crew. If there’s a drawback, we now have to determine one thing,” Javalet and press officer Alexandre Bertal instructed Cyclingnews in Rotterdam.
Javalet confirmed that Mavic at the moment helps each monetary and tools necessities for Saint Michel-Mavic-Auber93, however that the contract expires on the finish of this season. Going ahead, Javalet stated that Mavic will stay as an tools sponsor solely.
“We simply want one co-sponsor to switch Mavic. Mavic will stick with us as a sponsor, however they won’t give funding anymore. It is the tip of their contract this 12 months, however they’ll keep for a fabric sponsor,” he stated.
Under the administration of CM Aubervilliers, Saint Michel-Mavic-Auber93 has a 30-year historical past in males’s racing which races with a Continental licence, and it fashioned a girls’s crew in 2020, which later acquired a Continental licence in 2022.
In the earlier two seasons, the ladies’s crew has steadily grown into one of many high groups registered in France. In the UCI World Ranking, they’re twenty first, behind different France-registered groups FDJ-SUEZ, the nation’s solely WorldTour crew, and Cofidis in nineteenth. The Saint Michel-Mavic-Auber93 males’s crew are at the moment ranked thirty sixth within the World Rankings, nonetheless, Mavic’s departure as a monetary companion doesn’t seem to influence the lads’s programme.
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The UCI will introduce the UCI Women’s ProTeam division in 2025, one 12 months earlier than beforehand anticipated in 2026. Javalet confirmed that the crew has utilized for a Women’s ProTeam licence; nonetheless, the deadlines for registration data, financial institution ensures, and monetary documentation are developing in October.
He stated that if the crew cannot discover a monetary co-sponsor, they will be unable to maneuver ahead with their plans to achieve a Women’s ProTeam licence. One of their choices could possibly be to change into an elite or improvement crew for 2025, at the very least till they’ll discover extra monetary backing to re-apply for a ProTeam licence in future.
“It just isn’t the tip of the story. We nonetheless look to the long run. If it’s not a ProTeam, we are going to nonetheless have perhaps an novice construction for a girls’s crew. We gave all of the paperwork to the UCI to change into ProTeam in 2025,” he stated.
“If it would not work, and we hope it can work, but when it doesn’t, there’s a plan A, B or C. One plan could possibly be an elite crew or a improvement crew. We are usually not ending the ladies’s programme. Our crew has grown very nicely. We will nonetheless have some riders; we now have some targets for subsequent 12 months.”
The crew is competing on the Tour de France Femmes with Marion Bunel for the general classification and as a contender for the ultimate two days: stage 7 into La Grand Bornand and stage 8 to the highest of Alpe d’Huez.
Speaking with Cyclingnews initially of stage 1 in Rotterdam, Bunel stated, “I really feel good. I did some recon of the Alpe d’Huez, and I just like the climb. I believe that it is going to be very onerous, however I’m able to combat with the opposite ladies. A top-five can be excellent. I dream of it. I have not pinpointed a inserting particularly, however I’ll give my greatest day-after-day.”
Bunel confirmed to Cyclingnews that she has already signed a contract for the 2025 season, and Javalet stated a number of riders have discovered new contracts elsewhere for subsequent 12 months.
“We’ve given the crew all the data weeks in the past, so everybody is aware of. Right now, they’re targeted on the Tour de France Femmes. Some of our riders have already discovered groups for subsequent 12 months, and a few are at the moment ready. It is identical factor for us,” Javalet stated.
“We are ready, too. Finding firms may be very tough, and we now have to attend for the start of September, or if somebody might name and are available to us instantly right here, we’re right here [at the Tour de France Femmes].”
In the meantime, they introduced that they’ve introduced in SportEthik, managed by Pierre Rolland, as a companion with the crew. Javalet might flourish right into a extra intensive partnership if the crew can discover a monetary backer in 2025.
“[The team] is a biking monument, I’ve all the time identified it. It is a membership that has made robust decisions throughout its existence, permitting it to get pleasure from in the present day two girls’s and males’s groups evolving on the Continental stage,” Rolland stated.
“The membership advantages from the assist of loyal companions concerned in its societal initiatives. But in the present day the crew is experiencing a brake in its evolution. With all of the humility and willpower which might be ours, we are going to attempt to assist the construction as greatest we are able to in order that it might overcome this impediment and transfer ahead.”
Javalet confused that the organisation would do every little thing it might to seek out funding earlier than contemplating its choices for forming an elite improvement crew.
“If we do not get the ProTeam [licence] this 12 months, we are going to strive once more in one other 12 months. But we aren’t pondering novice, but, we’re pondering ProTeam.”
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