On Wednesday morning, the Caisse d'Epargne cycling team was presented to the press at the Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Epargne head office.

With 4 young new riders, the team clearly bets on rejuvenation!

The guests of honour

Still suffering from a bronchits, Daniel Mangeas, presented - just like Tuesday with the AG2R La Mondiale team - this team as well. He started by welcoming the guests of honour in the room:
- Jean Pitalier, the president of the Fédération Française de Cyclisme (French cycling federation)
- Alain Prost, the famous Formula 1 pilot who acts as a patron of the team in 2009
- Julie Krasniak, the female young mountain bike rider who's sponsored by the Caisse d'Epargne Lorraine Champagne-Ardenne

Immediately afterwards we saw a video with the team's highlights in 2008.

The introduction by the sponsor

Philippe Lesieur, Directeur Mécénat Sponsoring de la Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Epargne, than took the floor to first of all thank the riders for the way they defended the colours of Caisse d'Epargne in 2008, especially Alejandro Valverde but also the other riders such as Luis Leon Sanchez (winner of the 8th stage in Paris-Nice and of the 7th stage of the Tour de France), David Arroyo (winner of the 19th stage in the Vuelta and of the Subida d'Urkiola) and Imanol Erviti (winner of the 18th stage in the Vuelta). He forgot to mention Ivan Gutierrez who won the Eneco Tour for the second time in row in 2008.

He than reminded the public that the team won the two UCI ProTour trophies: the one for the best team and the individual trophy for Alejandro Valverde.

We are happy with the way the riders handle ethics in their sport: they know that for us respecting the rules is more important than winning. A good example is what happened when Oscar Pereiro fell during the Tour de France : the whole team stopped to help him.

Finally, Philippe Lesieur talked about the team's fans who stand on the side of the road during races, who buy the team's jersey and thus make it the most sold jersey of all ProTour teams and who regularly visit the team's web site of which a new version was introduced the same day (see below).

The team's general manager, Eusebio Unzue

In French, Eusebio Unzue said: In 2009 we promiss to do at least as good as in 2008.
By getting 4 young riders in we bet on rejuvenation.
We are always very proud when we see fans standing aside the road and we will thus do everything we can in 2009 not to disappoint them!

The presentation of the riders

The "oldies"
The presentation of the riders started with the riders who remained faithful to the team, in alphabetical order except for the leaders. The additional comments are mostly those provided by one of the team's directeurs sportifs, Yvon Ledanois.
- David Arroyo
- Anthony Charteau : he's able to sacrifice for the leaders and we count on him for Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Arnaud Coyot : he's the rider we definitely need to get the leaders back in the pack

In a short interview with him, Arnaud told me he will participate in 2009 in the Classics Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix ... the most difficult ones!

Afterwards, I will participate in the French Championships where my personal goal is to climb one footstep. Indeed, in 2008 he finished second so I asked him whether it didn't annoy him that the press kind of forgot his second place. His answer was very clear: I don't take it bad, I should just have become the French champion instead ! Indeed, he understood that if he wants the press to talk about him he has to finish first, not second ...

After the Championships he'll most probably do the Tour de France as a helper, I really go there to do everything for the team. Of course we briefly talked about how we both passed the three weeks of the Tour in 2008 and our common conclusion was that those three weeks pass by very quickly. Arnaud recovers very well in three weeks if everything goes fine, so I really don't realise it's three whole weeks actually.

I discovered the team's bike had changed a little ... Arnaud Coyot told me that it's still the same bike, only the colours have changed. The only difference is that it now has a Campagnolo group with 11 speeds instead of 10 before.

In general, the team is quite faithful to its partners and that's good because it allows us to work with good products: the Volvo cars are very good and with our Hugo Boss costumes we don't have any reason to complain either ...

- Mathieu Drujon ... was not only presented as a rider but also did a magic trick which he usually does for his team mates: he completely tear apart a newspaper (in this case dated 26 November 2008) before he realised there was one article in the newspaper he didn't read yet ... in two shakes the newspaper got back to its original form! He celebrates his birthday on Sunday so this was also the perfect ocasion to wish him a happy birthday while Yvon Ledanois reminded the press that he was of course not only part of the team because of his magical talents!
- Imanol Erviti : he arrived in the team quite young but now he gets to his peak; he already showed he can win races, in the Vuelta for example
- José Vicente Garcia Acosta or simply Txente as his surname; he will do his 15th pro season in 2009 and he's a worldwide reference of a rider who knows how to give the good example to young riders
- Ivan Gutierrez is a rider with a lot of endurance: he wants to go for it and is very ambitious
- Pablo Lastras is a dedicated guy but one with a roll of honour, for example at the Grand Prix de Plouay where he came to help his leaders but in the last round showed that he still had a lot of power and almost won the race
- David Lopez
- Alberto Losada, a rider with huge qualities in the mountains; we really count on him in 2009
- Daniel Moreno
- Luis Pasamontes : he has talent and temperament; he can give everything for his leaders but he also has the qualities to win a race
- Marlon Perez, is a perfect team mate: our leaders can count on him because he is able to ride for the team
- Francisco Perez Sanchez : a big rider with huge qualities, especially in the time trials. He's one of the riders who don't ride to win but are highly appreciated for their team work
- Mathieu Perget who progressively gets to his peak: he has lots of ambitions for 2009 and we ask him to show some good results in 2009
- Nicolas Portal : as Daniel Mangeas said, in the Tour de France, when his leader wins, you can see it on his face ... and indeed, we saw a big smile on his face on 11 July in Aurillac when Luis Leon Sanchez won the stage. Yvon Ledanois explained that Nico is always there every year: we can count on him the whole year long from January till October and he's a perfect rider for stage races because he recovers quite well in three weeks
- Joaquim Rodriguez : small in size but big in talen ... nothing to add!
- José Joaquim Rojas has made a perfect start in 2009 and can win in a sprint or in one of the Classics
- Luis Leon Sanchez : with the title of Spanish time trial champion, the stage victory of the 7th stage in Paris-Nice and of the 7th stage in the Tour de France and his 3rd place in the Critérium International and the 5th in the overall ranking of Paris-Nice, Yvon Ledanois correctly called him a real treasure who proudly showed the team's colours in 2008
- Rigoberto Uran, is someone who wants to succeed, who doesn't know what stress is (we just saw it when he came on stage), he is cool and makes people laugh ... he will show what he's worth in 2009 !
- Xabier Zandio, a perfect helper; he showed how the team is important for him by leaving his place in the Tour de France to someone else in better shape, he could as well decide not to say anything but he thought about the team by leaving his place to someone else

The new riders
The team has 5 new riders in 2009 : 4 young riders and one rider with several years of pro experience. These 5 riders were also presented in alphabetical order:

- Andrey Amador, a 22 year old Costa Rican (birth date: 29 August 1986) of whom Yvon Ledanois said: he showed what he's capable of in the Tour de l'Avenir (he won the prologue, finished second in the 7th stage and 5th in the overall ranking) and can rapidly show some results

- Rui Alberto Faria da Costa ; this 22 year old Portuguese rider (birth date: 5 October 1986) has finished in the U23 championships in the top 10: 5th for the race in line and 10th in the time trial. Furthermore, he finish two time third in the 6th and 8th stage of the Tour de l'Avenir to take the second place in the overall ranking. In 2008 he was part of the Portuguese team Benfica.

- Arnold Jeannesson, a 23 year old French rider (he celebrated his 23 years on 16 January) who comes from mountain biking and was also spotted in the Tour de l'Avenir where he won the 8th stage, took the third place in the overall ranking and the king of the mountain jersey! In 2008 Jeannesson was part of Auber 93.

- Vasil Kiryienka, a 27 year old Byelorussian rider (birth date: 28 June 1981) who was not at the team presentation because of a flu. Yvon Ledanois said he's a great plus for the team with a lot of potential, especially for time trials: he will be someone we can count on for the team work. He comes from Tinkoff Credit Systems, which has since become the new team Katusha.

- Angel Madrazo, a Spanish rider who's only 20 years old (birth date: 30 July 1988) who has talent and will learn a lot in the team ... we can count on him. At the end of 2008 he did a traineeship with Scott-American Beef.

The new riders of the Caisse d'Epargne team thus represent the 2nd, 3rd and 5th places of the Tour de l'Avenir !

Les leaders
With Francis Lafargue as a translator -even though Oscar Pereiro showed he didn't need that!- the two Spanish leaders of the team were presented last.

First of all Oscar Pereiro (31) who answered in French about his health after his terrible fall during the Tour de France 2008 (between Embrun and Prato Nevoso) in three simple words: I'm feeling fine and adding a very important message ... I think that this year is my year !

Since his accident, after which he thought for a while never be able to get back on a bike, he got the name of the mountain and the date of 20 July 2008 tattooed on his left arm.

The biggest star of the team of course still is Alejandro Valverde (28) who won no less than 11 of the 26 victories of the team in 2008. He explained that he will focus on the second part of the season with especially the Tour de France and the Vuelta. Of course I will participate in the Classics but in a much cooler way than before, my big goal is in July!

Concerning the French races, he will also participate in Paris-Camembert and the Dauphiné Libéré.


> Have a look at all my pictures of the official team presentation for Caisse d'Epargne 2009

The new web site

The team presentation was also the perfect occasion to present the team's brand new web site.

As I told you about two weeks ago, Alejandro Valverde announced the availability of the new web site on 28 January himself in a short movie. Now the site is online, it's up to Nico Portal to introduce it to its readers ... again in a movie ... He's actually really walking through the website to present the most important sections!

The new version of the web site is still available at www.cyclisme-caisse-epargne.fr.

A short video of the presentation

In addition to the cross-interviews of the riders in which a rider presents another rider, the first movie which the team published is a short video of the team presentation. To allow you to follow the presentation just as if you were there like me, I propose you watch the movie below ... :-)

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Marketing | Team presentations 2009

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