The Luxembourg workforce Leopard TOGT is to disband, after failing to search out sufficient extra funding to rise to the ProTeam stage.
“2023 has been the ultimate season for Leopard TOGT Professional Biking. This determination comes after cautious consideration by the workforce’s administration after not with the ability to discover extra funds to make the step as much as the UCI ProTeam stage,” a press launch acknowledged.
The closure brings an finish to a 13-year run and, after the workforce merged with the Danish Riwal squad at the beginning of this season, ends the latter workforce’s 15-year historical past.
Leopard TOGT had ambitions of stepping as much as the ProTeam stage for 2024 and scored a number of promising victories – the Olympias Tour and Circuit des Ardennes with Mathias Bregnhøj however couldn’t discover one other sponsor to make the leap.
“We had nice hopes of discovering a 3rd huge sponsor. Presumably from Denmark, for the reason that sport of biking has grown right here quite a bit after the Tour de France Grand Départ in Copenhagen, and naturally the 2 Danish Tour de France wins of Jonas Vingegaard,” mentioned workforce CEO Mogens Tveskov.
“We hoped to change into a Danish-Luxembourgish stepping stone between the UCI Continental and UCI WorldTeam stage, however sadly there have been inadequate results in make this occur. This lack of funds is the one and solely motive why the workforce decides to step down and say the world of biking farewell.”
Workforce supervisor Markus Zingen, who had been with the Leopard Continental workforce since its inception, mentioned, “It was after all not simple to mix two well-established groups into one, however we made it occur. Since day one, the Danish and the Luxembourgish core had been on the identical wavelength, which led to the superb season we had. We will declare that the merger was a really nice success, which made the choice to tug the plug not any simpler.”
Leopard started in 2011 when an actual property magnate from Luxembourg, Flavio Becca, employed Danish press officer for Bjarne Riis’ Saxo Financial institution workforce, Brian Nygaard, to launch a brand new professional workforce. With Saxo Financial institution’s future nonetheless in negotations, the workforce was in a position to rent a robust core of riders together with Andy and Fränk Schleck, Fabian Cancellara, Stuart O’Grady, and Jens Voigt. The administration firm was dubbed Leopard SA with Nygaard its common supervisor for 2011. The workforce took over/merged with the RadioShack workforce for 2012, with Nygaard departing earlier than the season began.
Becca bought the workforce’s WorldTour licence to Trek in 2014, and the workforce went on to change into what’s now Lidl-Trek.
The organisation Leopard additionally began the Continental workforce in 2012, which continued via 2023.