Bjarne Riis and his business partner Lars Seier Christensen have confirmed they plan to have a WorldTour team in the 2017 season but did not present a title sponsor and refused to say if they will work with the Bahrain Cycling Team that was announced at the weekend by Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain.
At a highly anticipated press conference in Copenhagen, Riis, the former owner and manager of the Tinkoff team, and Christensen, CEO of former sponsor Saxo Bank, first talked at length about a plan to create a Riis/Seier holding company and invest five million Euro in several different projects. The company will develop different businesses related to cycling, such as luxury holidays in Riis’ villa in Lucca, a nutrition training App, stationary bikes, an athlete testing centre, cycling academies, product development and merchandising, and even a virtual reality training project.
A graphic explained the business plan but highlighted that external investors are needed to develop each part of the plan. A WorldTour team is indicated as just one branch of the Riis/Seier project.
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Riis was apparently close to reaching a deal to manage the Bahrain Cycling Team but as Cyclingnews reported on Wednesday, he is facing competition from other team managers. Vincenzo Nibali has been linked to the Bahrain Cycling Team after his agent Alex Carera was contacted by the prince and Nibali went for a ride with him last February before the Dubai Tour.
Riis refused to talk specifically about links to the Bahrain Cycling Team and admitted the WorldTour team project could slip a year and only begin in 2018.
“We are currently working on to find out how a WorldTour team should be best created. There are several options,” Riis said, according to Ekstrabladet.dk.
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