There is life after Team Rabobank for Lars Boom
No matter how much we condemn doping in the sports, it is one issue that always needs more consideration as doping is actually a line between an athlete and a fraud.
The sport of cycling has always been plagued with dopers and cheaters of all sorts, but Lance Armstrong’s recent drug alliance revealed by USADA has really come up as one of the biggest deceives in history of the sport.
Many cycling teams and cyclists were affected by the scam but the Dutch side, Team Rabobank took the lion’s share after losing its main backer.
Rabobank has supported the team for the past 16 years but the recent drug controversies surrounding the sports of cycling made it end all the associations with the sports by the end of 21012 season.
The Dutch bank will however, continue to provide financial support to the team till the end of 2013 season and after that, the team must find a sponsor to continue at the top level of the sport.
Although all the cyclists on the Dutch squad are close to each other and also with the team but the case of Lars Boom is slightly different, considering the fact that the cyclist marked his professional debut with the team back in 2002 and has been loyal
with the side throughout his 11-year professional history.
“It was really frustrating because we had a really good and loyal sponsor, and they judged us on something that happened ten years ago when we weren’t even pro cyclists yet,” Boom told Cyclingnews at Blanco Pro Cycling's first training camp in Fuerteventura.
“We were just small kids looking up to these guys who were riding their bikes really fast, Now we’re trying to do that ourselves, but in an honest and truthful way”.
“We’ve already been doing things the right way for the last four or five years – all our lives, actually – but this happened and it’s really s**t,” he concluded.
Team Rabobank will ride the 2013 season as Blanco Pro Cycling Team and only time will tell, if it manages to find a new sponsor in the time span of one year to secure the future of several cyclists, both on men and women’s teams.
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