Dornbusch optimistic for Team Cycling Noris in 2010
Tea🍰m ou𒁏tlines expectations as sponsor search continues
Team Cycling Noris Directeur Sportif Jochen Dornbusch is optimistic about his team's chances this season, des💞pite the lack of a major corpo👍rate sponsor. Not only is he counting on getting a team licence from the International Cycling Union (UCI), but is also confident that he can retain the services of former World champion Amber Neben.
“I will call Amber now,” he told Cyclingnews Wednesday morning. “I think that if Amber is there, we can do w💫ell in the stage races this 🌊year.”
“With Amber,🐽 Trixi Worrack and Angela Hennig, I think we can bring in 10 to 15 wins this year,” said an upbeat Dornbusch. The team will look to target races including the Thüringen 💮Rundfahrt and the Giro d'Italia.
The team had 17 wins last season, with Neben winning the time trﷺial at the wome🦩n's Giro d'Italia and Worrack also claiming a stage at the race, one of the German's four season wins.
Neben told Cyclingnews last week that she was planning to sta𒐪y with the team for at least the first half of the season.
Noris is the former Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung. Th💯e German insurance company ended its sponsorship at the end of the season, and plans for Sykter GmbH to take over fell through in early December.
Team manager Herbert Oppelt told Rad-net.de that neither𝔉 Neben nor Nicole Cooke had yet officially agreed to stay with the team. “Right now we are still talking to both of them. We will start the season with eight riders, and there is still a question mark over [Neben and Cooke].”
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and🍎 expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
According to Dornbusch, those eight riders are Trixi Worrack, Marlen Jöhrend, Bianca Knöfple, Madeleine Sandig, Romy Kasper, Jennifer Hohl, Angela H♚ennig and Elke Gebhardt. He said that some of the riders would need to draw a salary, while others were receiving family support or were on the payroll of the German military or police.
Oppelt was to submit the team's licence application ღto the UCI as of last Friday, and now “hopes it will work out,” Dornbusch said. The UꦛCI is yet to confirm the team's status for this season.
Meanwhile, four of the riders will open the season at the Women's Tour of Qatar for the German national team. Gebhardt, Worrack. Hennig and Knöfple will be at the start of the race to be held February 3-5, the German cycling federation (Bund Deutscher Rad🐟fahrer) has announced.