Vincent Lavenu worried about team Ag2R losing the World Tour – Cycling News
Team Ag2R-La Mondiale has made their intentions clear for the upcoming Tour of Beijing 2011 as the team is looking ahead to score as many UCI points as it can. The team had a rough season as it is the last squad on UCI's team ranking as of September 2011.
There are a total number of 18 teams on the UCI team’s ranking and team Ag2R could not secure a better slot than the last one. Team Omega Pharma-Lotto is the leading team with Leopard Trek at second and Sky Procycling at third position.
Tour of Beijing is starting today as the race is scheduled from October 5 to 9 and has also been included in the UCI World Tour races. President of UCI, Pat McQuaid mentioned that starting an international race in Asia is very healthy for the cycling fans
and for the sport itself. Team Ag2R is hence looking to improve their performance and Tour of Beijing is the last big event to gain some UCI point towards the end of the season.
Former French cyclist Vincent Lavenu is Ag2R’s team manager as he is really worried about the total number of points scored by the team. He was explaining to L’Equipe when he said, "There are bonuses only for victories and not for good results. Either you
win, which we don't, or you have to find solutions. Our sponsor and myself want to remain in First Division next year, so I have decided to try and find riders who win races." The team has scored only five wins this season and even the fourth finish by John
Gadret at the Giro d’ Italia 2011 could not help the team score enough points.
Gadret has been amongst the few cyclists who have really performed for the team as Jean-Christophe Peraud is the second rider who has done his bit to help the team secure their position. Peraud was amongst the top ten cyclists at the Paris-Nice, Tour de
France and the Dauphine.
Vincent’s main focus at the moment is to figure out how many points his team needs to remain in the World Tour. He is dedicating most of his time to the newly designed software that calculates the performance of players and also updates about the transfers.
Tags: