"National road coach and manager of the Australian Giant-AIS team Heiko Salzwedel said he is negotiating with a team from the Czech Republic for the arrangement to begin next year. The proposal would see the best riders from both teams compete together in many of the top-level events where up until now each has fallen short of performing as hoped. These races include the Du Pont Tour in the US, the Tours of Luxembourg and Denmark and possibly even the Tour of Italy should they have enough good riders."
"However, for small or regional events like the Commonwealth Bank Classic in Australia, the Tour of Langkawi in Malaysia or the Peace Race in Europe, the new team would field riders mainly from the country closest to the event."
Salzwedel said "When the Giant-AIS team started a year ago we were invited to many of those races. But now we need to go up a level and perform well in them. And to do that we need to make a fusion with a European team on our level and hwo has the same needs. For races like the DuPont Tour you have to field nine very good riders. But as this year's DuPont Tour showed we don't have nine of that calibre. We have about two or three. We are not trying to move away from being Australian. But under what country the team is finally registered will depend on where the most money for it comes from."
Guinness continues..."Speaking after Sunday's Tour of Nurnberg Alstadt in Germany, where West Australia's Matt White finished third, Salzwedel said the merger would also help develop under-23 riders who are not on the Giant-AIS team to better prepare for the 2000 Olympic Games."
Salzwedel "From now until Sydney 2000 there will be a major focu on the under 23 riders. And with this proposal for the professional team which has older riders, the fact that I'll be employing fewer riders means that there will be dollars freed for the under-23s. Meanwhile, the pro team will continue to be a platform for Australia's most senior riders to compete internationally at the best events."
Guinness writes that "Salzwedel hopes to confirm the proposed merger at the Commonwealth Bank Classic next month".
Bill notes:
Without wanting to put the idea down too much, the idea is a joke! The Giant-AIS squad was really the national amateur team funded originally by the Australian taxpayer through the Australian Institute of Sport and sponsored with equipment by Giant Cycles. It has typically underperformed and in terms of the medals for dollars criterion that dictates sport funding in OZ it was in big danger anyway. The national track squad deserves its funding b/c it wins. The road squad has not been successful.
None of our top pro riders would take a contract with the team. Evidence can be seen in the Olympic road race selections. Only one of the AIS team got selected and there was a big question as to why he did. Obviously, one line of argument was that he was selected to save face for the AIS who had prepared riders for years and then with the transition into open racing none of them were really up to it.
The problem has been that the best riders take Euro-contracts early and don't stay in the AIS structure (Vogels, Jonker, McEwan to name the most recent). The AIS team will never be a stepping stone as the manager claims. It really has a problem of identity. It cannot expect the taxpayer to fund a pro team given that the AIS model is about amateur sport. It also cannot expect to get the best riders b/c its resource base is too small. What it has to do is not merge with another second rate eastern european team, but attract some of the best OZ riders back and get European sponsorship on the back of those names.