DENMARK: CYCLIN -: Saxo Bank announces Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will race for them next year

Record ID: 561642

  • Title: DENMARK: CYCLIN -: Saxo Bank announces Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will race for them next year
  • Date: 4th August 2010
  • Summary: FILE - MADRID, SPAIN (FILE - JULY 26, 2010) (REUTERS) (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) 2010 TOUR DE FRANCE WINNER ALBERTO CONTADOR MOBBED BY FANS AT THE AIRPORT CONTADOR TAKING PHOTO WITH A FAN AND LEAVING THE AIRPORT
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Denmark
  • Country: Denmark
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA8EBQ0WQWJQGPO58YG8074AP40
  • Story Text: Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has signed for Denmark's Saxo Bank team, team manager Bjarne Riis announced on Tuesday (August 3).
    "I am proud and honoured that I am able to introduce Alberto Contador to our team next year," Riis told a news conference in the Danish capital.
    "It is a fantastic opportunity that has occurred and that we are able to realise," added Riis.
    Spaniard Contador announced last week he would not renew his contract with Kazakh-funded Astana who he joined in 2008.
    Riis said Contador joining his team would create a lot of possibilities and challenges for the team.
    "It gives a lot of possibilities. It gives a new challenge, a great challenge. Obviously, he's probably the best rider in the world so I think that's huge for me and my team. I think it gives possibilities that's for sure, I mean ambitions, a lot of ambitions. I mean one of his ambitions is to win all three big tours in one year - that's a great one and I like that challenge," he said.
    Riis, himself a Tour de France winner in 1996, said would have to play a big role in turning those ambitions into victories for the team.
    "I think I would have a big role in that no doubt about that and I believe in it and I think it's going to be difficult, it's hard - it's hard just to be a bike rider, we know that - but it's a great challenge" he said.
    Contador won his third Tour de France title on July 25, finishing the gruelling three-week race 39 seconds ahead of Saxo Bank team leader Andy Schleck.
    Riis also said one of his tasks was to make his riders, many of them individualists, work as a team.
    "I think our team work will always be the same and I mean, I think all riders and athletes are big egoists and on their own very much so I think that what it takes is a strong leader that can bind them together as a team and I think that I've proven that many times and I believe I can do that again," Riis said.
    Luxembourg rider Schleck, also runner-up to Contador in 2009, and his brother Frank have said they will leave at the end of the season for a new team.
    Saxo Bank will remain a co-sponsor of the team, which has also enrolled United States (U.S.) software group SunGard as a co-sponsor, Riis said.
    The announcement reversed a January decision by Saxo Bank to drop its sponsorship of the cycling team at the end of 2010.
    Instead Saxo Bank will be a co-title sponsor for another year along with SunGard which signed up as a sponsor during the Tour de France.
    In a statement, Saxo Bank said the team will be called Saxo Bank-SunGard Professional Cycling Team.
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