NTT Pro Cycling are the first african team on the World Tour, which is cycling’s highest level. Under the name of Team Dimension Data debuted the team on the World Tour in 2016, and drove a good season with 32 victories – including five stage victories in the Tour de France.
Since it went steeply downhill, and the team has the past seasons scraped the bottom of the teamhierarkiet with a measly seven wins on the year. This is the outcome, although topryttere as Mark Cavendish, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Roman Kreuziger and Michael Valgren has been employed.
The latest fiaskosæsoner means to the team, Bjarne Riis has now taken control over, the pressure is completely on the defensive. It provides, in turn, Riis the opportunity to build the team up after the philosophy and the values he drives the Team CSC/Saxo Bank top. The goal is a maximum strength hold to 2021, when the Tour begins in Copenhagen.
the Team is established and still partly owned by south african Doug Ryder, which is strongly absorbed by the charity on the african continent. Through the non-profit organisation Qhubeka rids he bikes to impoverished africans, and this mission has very much shaped the team’s identity and image.
Several times the team’s big stars appeared in the promotion videos to a good cause. Not least supersprinteren Mark Cavendish took in his four seasons on the team the task seriously.
the Team was established as kontinentalhold in 2008 under the name MTN Energade Road Team with only south african riders. In 2011 changed the team name to MTN-Qhubeka, and with the identity of the progressed the team into the international scene, as two years later took a step up in the hierarchy to run as prokontinentalhold.
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Michael Valgren is one of the riders on Riis’ new team, which certainly can not be satisfied with his 2019 season. Here, during the Tour de France last year. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/Ritzau Scanpix
Bjarne Riis’s new team has been among the worst the last two seasons. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix
the Biggest name on the holdlisten the year was the German Gerald Ciolek, who sensationally won the forårsklassikeren Milan-Sanremo. In 2015, debuted at the team in the Tour de France, where the briton Steve Cummings won a memorable stage for the team in the Tour de France, when he took by surprise the French stars Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot in the final of the Côte de la Croix Neuve.
In 2016, took the team under the name of Dimension Data the big step up on the World Tour level. Through the four seasons the south african it company sponsored the team, while it also has been a sponsor of the ASO, which is behind the Tour de France.
Both sponsorships are now taken over by NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone), a japanese telekommunikationsgigant, which acquired Dimension Data in 2010, and now lets it and other trademarks in the group to be deleted in order to promote the parent company.
NTT is also storsponsor for the OLYMPICS in Tokyo and multi-year sponsor of Tour organizer ASO, but has only committed itself to sponsor the cycling team in one single year, namely 2020. The team have a World Tour license for a further two years until the end of 2022.
Apart from a handful of nyprofessionelle Team NTT only two riders on the contract beyond 2020. It is the belgian, Victor Campenaerts and Italian Domenico Pozzovivo. Riis has so much freedom to build a team according to his taste to 2021-season, where the Tour de France begins in Denmark.
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