Lampre/TJ Sport in danger of not racing in the WorldTour
Offers coming in for South African stage race ace Louis Meintjes
Lampre-Merida, a team that has been around since 1991 and whose WorldTour license was purchased by Chinese government investment concern TJ Sport, looks to be in trouble of not racing at pro cycling’s highest level next season. It may not become the first Chinese-registered squad to make the WorldTour and might have to settle at the Pro Continental level or even fold.
On November 25 the UCI announced 17 of the 18 teams set for the 2017 WorldTour season, and although expected new additions Bahrain-Merida and Bora-Hansgrohe were named, TJ Sport was not. Cycling’s governing body explained that TJ Sport team was still under review by the UCI Licence Commission, and the squad insisted that this was due to a key member of its application team getting sick and delaying the paperwork.
The UCI gave TJ Sport until December 15 to submit the necessary paperwork and as of December 8 things don’t look promising for the old Lampre outfit.
The scheduled December training camp was cancelled. Most of the team’s Colnago bikes and Champion System kit have yet to be delivered. And now cyclists are starting to field offers from other teams. Not only did Louis Meintjes, Rui Costa, Sacha Modolo and Diego Ullisi stay with the team for 2017, but Ben Swift and Darwin Atapuma also joined for next year’s campaign.
Meintjes, who was eighth in this year’s Tour de France, is looking towards Bahrain-Merida and Dimension Data, who he raced for for three years, taking 10th at the 2015 Vuelta a España when the team was called MTN-Qhubeka. Costa is linked to Katusha-Alpecin.
