Former world champion Colin Sturgess joins Madison-Genesis as team manager

After a successful 2017 season that included a fifth-place finish at the Tour de Yorkshire, Madison-Genesis have appointed former world and national champion Colin Sturgess as team manager.

Sturgess, who won the individual pursuit at the Track World Championship in 1989 and the British national road race title in 1990, has taken over from Mike Northey, who has decided to move back home to New Zealand with his young family.

Joining from Metaltek-Kuota, a lower budget team where he has engineered impressive results including victory for Dan Fleeman in this year's Rutland-Melton Cicle Classic, Sturgess says that he does not have plans for significant change at Madison-Genesis, especially with the roster already being close to full.

"There is a lot we can do throughout the winter to become a unit a successful unit by knowing each others strengths and weaknesses. It sounds a bit clichéd but to build a team you really need to know each other," Sturgess told Cycling Weekly.

"You don’t always have to get on but in a team you do need to have that structure and bonding there. Being new to the set up, my job is to go out and meet the riders and get to know therm. There’s a bit of play off between those guys and to try to bolster the weaknesses to ensure we’re an all round successful unit."

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As for the team's focus for next year, Sturgess says that he will continue to focus on the same goals that they have pursued in previous years, which saw Matt Holmes take fifth place in the Tour de Yorkshire.

"There won’t be massive amount of change on the racing calendar," Sturgess continued. "I’d love some good rides from the boys there so it would be good to get them firing up there and just revisiting a Tour of Normandy and try to get in some good stuff in Belgium and Holland and Austria.

"We'll look at where can we have a good crack of the whip and get some experience in races we’ve not done before. But the main objectives are the same: Tour of Britain, Tour of Yorkshire, and the Tour Series."