After one year as Waowdeals, Marianne Vos’s team is set to become CCC after signing a three year sponsorship deal with the Polish shoe manufacturer. Dutch website Wieler Revue initially reported Vos would be moving to a new outfit, but the team have since confirmed the move is purely a new sponsorship deal.
Though the deal is initially for three years, an option for a further two exists, giving the outfit much needed stability. Though the structure of the squad will remain the same as now, there will be a tie up between the men’s and women’s squads.
“Our team actually becomes the women’s branch,” said team manager Eric van den Boom in a press release. “The look and feel of both will be the same, and wherever possible we will go for synergy. How we can benefit from each other is yet to crystallize. In the coming period we will talk to our new colleagues to see what is possible.”
The Polish outfit recently announced a merger with BMC Racing and the new deal means both men’s and women’s squads will wear the same kit and ride the same bikes.
No new riders have been announced, but British rider Dani Rowe has been riding for Waowdeals this year and is yet to announce a team for 2019.
Vos herself has been back to somewhere near her best of late. Second place at the GP Plouay followed victory at the Women’s WorldTour one day race in Vårgårda in Sweden and a dominant performance at the Ladies Tour of Norway, where she won all three stages and the GC.
GP Plouay was Vos’s final road race of 2018. Despite having been cyclocross world champion on seven occasions, she recently announced she would ride a full ‘cross season for the first time in her career.
Though a slightly different organisation, the Waowdeals outfit was created from the ashes of the Rabobank women’s team after sponsorship was withdrawn at the end of the 2016 season.
Even with Vos on board the new team structure struggled to gain serious sponsorship and lasted only one year as WM3 Energie. While CCC will be the headline sponsor, the team are in negotiations with Waowdeals, a Dutch mobile phone company, to continue their collaboration.
