As the European cycling season got underway at the end of January, let's take a quick look at the main changes to the various cycling teams, for the 2024 season. As velowire.com did (see here) on the occasion of the new year, many teams are also seeing name and sponsor(s) changes when a new season comes around. In this article, we list the most important of these changes. We won't, however, touch on all the outfit changes, nor the marginal changes (such as adding spaces or hyphens or slashes, or deleting or moving elements of this type)!

UCI WorldTeams

In the first division, the UCI WorldTeams, we find 18 teams, as last year. These are the same teams, but for some of them, new sponsors have arrived and others have left (or moved down a notch, to no longer be title sponsors), and it's these changes we'll be looking at here.

AG2R Citroën Team has become Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team

In the French team, secondary sponsor Citroën has prematurely ended its title partnership. The carmaker, which had been a partner of the Chambéry-based team since 2021, had a contract running up to and including 2025, but has now cut its ties with immediate effect after 3 rather than the planned 5 seasons. From 2024 onwards, the French brand will simply become the official supplier of the team's cars. French equipment manufacturer Decathlon has taken up the vacant position perfectly, and even better, by becoming title sponsor ahead of insurer AG2R La Mondiale, the team's historical sponsor since 2000 as title sponsor, and even since 1997 among the team's sponsors.

Decathlon has teamed up with the team under a contract running until the end of the 2028 season (5 years), and with its VAN RYSEL brand (which, in a nod to Decathlon's home region, simply means "from Lille", in Dutch/Flemish) becomes the team's bicycle (previously BMC), helmet and eyewear supplier.

The continental team (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Development Team) and the training team (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale U19 Team) also benefit from the support of these two sponsors. The latter, however, is no longer linked to the Chambéry Cyclisme Formation structure, as was historically the case.

Team Arkéa-Samsic becomes Arkéa-B&B Hotels

In this other French team, partner Samsic has not renewed its partnership after a previous renewal (the company had become the team's second title sponsor in 2018 for an initial 3-year period; extended for a further 3 years, this contract expired at the end of the 2023 season).

Their departure heralds the return of a sponsor who has already been present in the world of pro cycling previously, B&B Hotels, which had been at KTM's side as sponsor of the B&B Hotels-KTM team until the project around this team, led by Jérôme Pineau, came to a rather spectacular end at the end of 2022. By mid-2023, Team Arkéa was already announcing the return of this sponsor, by its side, from the 2024 season.

Intermarché - Circus - Wanty becomes Intermarché - Wanty

For this Belgian team, there have been a number of small changes of sponsor and therefore name in recent years (since 2014 alone, we've gone from Wanty-Groupe Gobert then Wanty-Gobert to Circus-Wanty Gobert and then from Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux to Intermarché-Circus-Wanty and now Intermarché-Wanty), with the mention or lack of mention of Circus, a casino brand, over the years. In 2024, the brand remains one of the team's partners, but no longer appears in the team name. Intermarché, a chain of 1,800 supermarkets in France and 160 in Belgium, remains the main sponsor of the Walloon team, alongside Wanty, a construction, demolition and civil engineering company (among others).

Jumbo-Visma has become Team Visma | Lease a Bike

Probably the most important change, and the most visible - if only because of the team's position at the top of the rankings - is that in the Dutch "yellow and black" team: Jumbo-Visma has become Visma | Lease a Bike. The subject of various negotiations in the second half of 2024 - a highly successful year for the team, which won all 3 Grand Tours! - including the possibility of a merger with Belgian team Soudal Quick-Step, the Dutch team finally got back to basics, relying on historical sponsors to make up for the "half-departure" of historical sponsor Jumbo. Indeed, Jumbo - a supermarket chain in the Netherlands and Belgium - had announced that it wanted to cut back as soon as possible... contractually, Jumbo had obligations towards the team until the end of 2024. Indeed, when the partnership contract was renewed in 2018, it was for an indefinite period, with a minimum duration of 5 years, combined with a 2-year notice period required for its dissolution. Discreetly, Jumbo informed the team at the end of 2022 that it wished to terminate the contract at the end of the 2024 season, but indicated that it would terminate the contract earlier if a new sponsor came on board. In the end, this is what happened, and Jumbo transformed its remaining year as main sponsor into a 3-year contract as secondary sponsor, allowing it to appear on the back of the jersey, under the words "Jumbo, founding partner".

The Visma company, which became the second title sponsor alongside Jumbo in 2019, then moved up a notch to become the first title sponsor, and it was one of the PON Group companies, also a long-standing partner of the team, that positioned itself to become the second title sponsor. Since January 1, 2024, the team has been known as Team Visma | Lease a Bike, and the legal structure behind it has also changed. For several years, the cycling team (in its men's, development and women's versions) had been associated with the ice skating (speed) team of the same name, and the legal structure reflected this with a global entity that answered to the name Team Oranje B.V. ("Oranje" in reference to the country's national color, orange), which in turn housed on the one hand Blanco Pro Cycling Team BV for cycling activities (in reference to the "blanco" year in sponsorships after the end of the Rabobank era, and to the operating rules agreed in the team since that time, Blanco Koers giving the team values), and on the other The Speed Skating BV for the skating part.

As part of the search for a new sponsor, it became clear that the association of the two activities was not necessarily totally natural for potential sponsors, especially as the cycling team has a strong international reputation, while the ice skating team is hardly known outside the Netherlands. It was therefore decided that the skating team should go its own way from now on, and that the cycling teams should continue independently.

In this context, and as the team had become known for its remarkable yellow and black colors, a new approach was proposed to the sponsors: where the yellow color had originally come from Jumbo, it was proposed to keep it and continue as "the yellow bees" (the little nickname given to the team in connection with its colors) and thus always in yellow and black. In this way, the team wanted to give itself a real identity, beyond its title sponsors, and to do this it also needed a name of its own. In keeping with the bees' nickname, the team now presents itself under the name Yellow.B: not only in terms of legal structure, but also publicly, with the dedicated logo appearing on the back of the team's jerseys, shorts and caps.

Similarly, the team's slogan, historically in Dutch samen winnen for winning together (communicating the team spirit so sacred to the team) has been revised to become in English beyond victory. Finally, not only have the outfits changed, now mentioning main sponsors Visma and Lease a Bike while keeping the yellow (which has become brighter / a little more fluorescent) and black, but the bikes have also been given a makeover!

Team dsm-firmenich adds a sponsor with the Dutch Post Office, to become Team dsm-firmenich PostNL

The second Dutch UCI WorldTeam to have its name changed, here after the addition of a sponsor, is Team dsm-firmenich PostNL. Already last year, on the occasion of the Tour de France 2023, the team was renamed from Team dsm to Team dsm-firmenich. This wasn't just an act of branding, as can sometimes be seen on the occasion of the Tour de France, but a real name change, following the merger between Dutch Koninklijke DSM and Swiss Firmenich in April of the same year.

This year, the Dutch Post Office, PostNL, has joined the ranks of title sponsors of the Dutch team, which dates back to 1999, when it was known as Batavus-Bankgiroloterij-Big Star, but is probably better known as Skil-Shimano in 2012, Team Giant-Alpecin in 2015 and 2016, and Team Sunweb from 2017 to 2020.

The keep challenging signature with the two vertical bars, introduced in 2014 at Giant-Shimano, continues to mark the team jersey but now adopts the orange color of PostNL, and also the national color of the Netherlands. On this occasion, the team also recalled the significance of these two bars, the one on the left representing the continuous development of each individual, while the one on the right represents its innovative environment, which is also constantly improving. The jersey has therefore turned to light blue, with orange as the contrasting color, and the team's bikes have also changed look. The latter are predominantly white, but also bring back the same colors.

UCI ProTeams

On the UCI ProTeams side, there's also movement, with the discontinuation of two teams, Bolton Equities Black Spoke and Human Powered Health, the move up one level (it was previously a UCI Continental Team) of Dutch team TDT-Unibet and 4 name changes:

• Corratec Selle Italia simply became Corratec
• Eolo-Kometa Cycling Team has become Team Polti Kometa
• Green Project-BardianiCSF-Faizanè became VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè
• and finally Uno-X Pro Cycling Team became Uno-X Mobility

UCI Continental Teams

For the 3rd level of teams, the UCI Continental Teams, we have seen a drastic reduction in the number of teams, from 175 to 149! We therefore present here only the new teams and name changes.

New teams

Here are the new UCI Continental Teams:

• Arkéa-B&B Hotels Continentale
• Ccache X Par Küp, which is actually making a comeback at continental level
• Chengdu Cycling Team
• Colombia Potencia de la Vida - Strongman
• Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Development Team (the Chambéry-based team has severed ties with Chambéry Cyclisme Formation, which has fulfilled this role since its creation in 2001)
• Diftar Continental Cyclingteam (part of the Allinq Continental Team)
• Gapyeong Cycling Team, returning after 2022
• Huansheng-Scom-Taishan Sport Cycling Team
• Illes Balears Arabay Cycling
• Java-Inovotec Pro Team
• Lidl-Trek Future Racing
• Lillehammer CK Continental Team
• Lubelskie Per&lslash;a Polski
• MYVELO Pro Cycling Team
• Nu Colombia
• Plus Performance - Solutos
• Team Saitel
• Team Sistecredito
• UAE Team Emirates Gen-Z
• Velolien Matsuyama

In addition, various teams have changed their names, either because the title sponsors have changed, or because the team name has been simplified:

• Abloc CT became Parkhotel Valkenburg
• Restaurant Suri-Carl Ras became Airtox-Carl Ras
• Beykoz Belediyesi Spor Kulübü became Beykoz Belediye Spor Türkiye
• Bodywrap Ltwoo Cycling Team became Bodywrap Men's Cycling Team
• China Glory Continental Cycling Team became China Glory-Mentech Continental Cycling Team
• Circus-Re Uz-Technord became Wanty-Re Uz-Technord
• Cycling Team Friuli ASD became CTF Victorious (CTF for Cycling Team Friuli)
• like the UCI WorldTeam, Development Team dsm-firmenich became Development Team dsm-firmenich PostNL
• Cycling Team Kranj became Sava Kranj Cycling
• Eurocyclingtrips became Eurocyclingtrips-Yoeleo
• Ferei Mongolia Team became Ferei Quick-Panda Podium Mongolia Team
• Glassdrive / Q8 / Anicolor became Sabgal/Anicolor
• GW Shimano Sidermec became GW Erco Shimano
• Hagens Berman Axeon became Hagens Berman Jayco
• HRE Mazowsze Serce Polski became Mazowsze Serce Polski
• following the example of the UCI WorldTeam, Jumbo-Visma Development Team became Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development
• Materiel-velo.com has become Philippe Wagner / Bazin
• Mentorise Elite Team became Mentorise MLMSuperstars
• P & S Benotti became P & S Metalltechnik Benotti
• Saris Rouvy Sauerland Team became Rembe Pro Cycling Team Sauerland
• Roojai Online Insurance simplified its name to Roojai Insurance
• SIAS Rime has also simplified its name, becoming Rime
• Sofer - Savini Due - OMZ has become Vini Monzon - Savini Due - OMZ
• Team Colpack Ballan CSB became Team MBH Bank Colpack Ballan
• Team Felbermayr Simplon Wels became Team Felt Felbermayr
• Team Lotto-Kern Haus became Team Lotto Kern-Haus PSD Bank
• Team Medellin-EPM became Team Medellin
• Team Papa John's became STAMINA Racing
• Terengganu Polygon Cycling Team became Terengganu Cycling Team
• like the UCI ProTeam, Uno-X Dare Development Team became Uno-X Mobility Development Team
• Van Rysel-Roubaix Lille Métropole simplified its name, becoming Van Rysel-Roubaix
• Voltas-Madaris Cycling Team and Tartu2024 Cycling Team appear to have merged to become Voltas-Tartu 2024 by CCN
• WSA KTM Graz p/b Leomo has simplified its name, losing its last sponsor and becoming WSA KTM Graz.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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