Gaviria's exit from Quick-Step Floors confirmed

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Fernando Gaviria (Quic🗹k-Step Floors) wears the yellow jersey at the start of stage 2 of the Tour de France(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Fernando Gaviria will leave 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Quick-Step Floors at the end of 2018, team manager Patrick Lefevere confirmed to Cyclingnews on Wednesday.

At the time, Lefevere was still searching for sponsorship to help run the team next year, and was facing the prospect of nullifying several rider contracts in order to balance the books on a reduced budget. Gaviria, one of the team's star riders who won two stages in his 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France debut this year,✤ was granted permission to talk to other teams, and negotiations developed with U♏AE Team Emirates.

Even securing additional funding for 2019 from Belgian PVC company Deceuninck, Lefevere was 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:unsure of holding onto Gaviria, highlighting the still far superior financial power of UAE Team Emirates. "I don’t want to keep people against their will," Lefevere said. "I don't want to say that he doesn't want to stay but wh🎶en the team is forced to think about its worst-case scenario then people start t𒈔o speak. I couldn't think too long term and into 2020 and 2021, so some riders start to talk to other teams."

Shuffling the decks is nothing new to Lefevere, who let Marcel Kittel leave this time last year in order to bump Gaviria up the pecking order, and his decision was fully justified as replacement Elia Viviani turned out to be the star sprinter of 2018. Gaviria's exit will be softened by the emergence of fellow Colombian Alvaro Hodeg and Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen, bo⛦th of whom have won multiple races, including at WorldTour level, in outstanding neo-pro campaigns.

Patrick is a freelance sports writer and editor. He’s an NCTJ-accredited journalist with a bachelor’s degree in modern languages (French and Spanish). Patrick worked full-time at Cyclingnews for eight years between 2015 and 2023, latterly as Deputy🐟 Editor.