Garmin’s merger with Cannondale this winter meant that some changes were inevitable, but even without the new name and the fresh colours, a process of rejuvenation was already in effect.
The infusion of young talent from the old Cannondale team has helped to drop the squad’s average age further, of course, and it is now the lowest in the WorldTour. Even at this early juncture, manager Jonathan Vaughters feels this merger is set to be a rather more convivial affair than the hastily-arranged nuptials between Garmin and Cervélo TestTeam in 2011.
"With the Cervélo merger, it was a lot of really big contracts that we couldn’t necessarily afford and some riders who were very concrete in their thinking, and weren’t really open to doing things a new way," Vaughters told Cyclingnews. "Some of them were able to integrate and were great guys, and others were just more set in their ways."
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The likes of Davide Formolo and Matej Mohoric are at a very different point in their careers than, say, Thor Hushovd when he joined Garmin as world champion in 2011, and so far at least, the integration has reportedly been smoother.
"If I told them to go ride their bikes for 10 hours naked in the ocean they’d go and try to do it and think that somehow it had meaning, which of course puts a greater burden on the coaches and directors and staff," Vaughters said. "They’re not set in their ways at all, not even a little bit, so you really have to put them on the right path."
The change in Cannondale-Garmin’s age profile is not due solely to the influx of youth, of course. The past couple of years have seen the departure of some of its elder statesmen, including David Millar, Christian Vande Velde and Dave Zabriskie: some of the very riders who signed up in 2008 on the tacit understanding that Slipstream Sports marked a supposed clean break with their doping pasts.
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