The clean repuation of the Dutch banking team was severely tested last year. 2007 was not the year of the phenomenal victory in Milan-San Remo of Oscar Freire or the first real Vuelta victory of Denis Menchov, but the year of Michael Rasmussen. In a period of poor leadership, strong emotions and a cheating man in the yellow jersey, everything went wrong.


The change in the team this winter was not so much the new riders, but mostly the structure of the team. Theo de Rooij, not famous for his abilities as a team leader to begin with, quit and was replaced by Henri van der Aat at first (interim) and later by Harald Knebel. The riders all got assigned to one of the directors-sportif, who will always know what a rider does and where he is, thus solving that dreaded whereabouts system.


The team has eighteen riders from their home country by now, on a total of 29. They selected the best talents from their own talent-team. Martijn Maaskant, Thom van Dulmen, Rob Ruijgh and Tom Veelers were not offered a contract to the Pro-team (in time), so they chose to try their luck elsewhere. Tour de l’Avenir winner Bauke Mollema did make the step to the Pro-Team together with Tom Leezer, and gets a chance to prove himself in a way Gesink did last year.


Also the riders that were signed from other teams are familiar with the Dutch language. Michiel Elijzen came back from France, Ten Dam and Tankink are two reliable allround riders and also the talented German Paul Martens was given a contract. Martens, who speaks Dutch fluently, is a classy allround talent with a decent time trial and mostly qualities on hilly terrain. So for the classics manager Van der Aat signed some valuable riders. With Flecha on the cobblestones, Freire in the slightly hilly classics and Dekker for the Ardennes and Lombardia the team should have a key rider for every classic. Besides that, there will always be some strong support with riders like Gesink, Langeveld, Martens, Posthuma, Tankink, Ten Dam and Moerenhout.


Fot stage races the team has much less strong riders, altough there is hope for the future. Menchov will, after his two Vuelta victories, once again aim for the Tour de France. He has changed his schedule and will now start with the Giro to get the necessary kilometres behind him (also Niermann, Walker, Weening and Brown will go to the Giro) and then head to Bretagne. Dekker proved last year, when free of injuries, he can win smaller stage races like Romandy. But that is it. It’s tempting to play the talented Gesink, and to a lesser extend Mollema, in a stage race already, but with the results of Pieter Weening in mind, caution would be wise.


If there is one thing that came out of the Rasmussen-case, it is the necessity of professional support. Not only to know where they are at all times, but also to continue to find ways to make the riders better. With riders like Langeveld, Walker, Gesink and Mollema the team has potential gold within its ranks. It is important that after Dekker more of the self-trained talents find their way to the world’s elites. We can only hope that the team management realises that this new start is the ideal moment to take the team to a higher level of professionalism.


In
Tom Leezer, Bauke Mollema (Rabobank Continental), Paul Martens (Skil-Shimano), Michiel Elijzen (Cofidis), Bram Tankink (Quickstep-Innergetic), Laurens ten Dam (Unibet.com)


Out
Michael Boogerd (retired), Michael Rasmussen (suspended), Leon van Bon (Trek - Marco Polo Cycling Team), Max van Heeswijk (Willems Veranda's), Thorwald Veneberg (retired)