Olympic champion and fourth-placed finisher in the Tour de France, Samuel Sanchez, is set to finalise his plans this week in relation to which team he will compete with next season.
The Spaniard had previously been linked to moving to the Vacansoleil squad, thus adding strength to its push to gain selection for Grand Tours, but it now looks increasingly likely that he could stay as part of his current Euskaltel-Euskadi team.
He indicated prior to the start of yesterday’s opening leg of the Tour of Burgos that he was very close to an agreement with the Basque squad.
“We are going to make a decision this week,” he said, according to Biciciclismo. “With the team, many things are very good, but I have a need for calm. The team has my support…I have been here for 11 years and I have a lot of emotional ties to it.”
The team is facing a drop in budget of one million euro for 2011 and as a result of that, the economic offer made to him is less than what he was aiming for. For that reason the offer by Vacansoleil is an attractive one, but once concern has to be the fact that it was passed over for wildcard selection by the three Grand Tours this year.
As much as money is important, Sanchez also needs the security of knowing that he will ride the major events in 2011. However his current team faces the risk of having to relinquish its ProTour licence due to the budgetary limitations, thus putting it in a less secure position in terms of race selection.
Last month, the president of the Fundación Euskadi backing the team, Miguel Madariaga, said that he considered it a possibility that the squad could be downgraded. "It would not be a trauma for the team to drop down a category," he told El Correo. "I'm not saying that we are going to leave the UCI ProTour. What I am saying is that the team is either going to continue on the right footing at that level, or it will do so as a Pro Continental outfit."
Sanchez must therefore weigh everything up carefully. “We must evaluate everything…the economic aspect, and also the sporting one,” he said.
Sanchez’s situation is representative of the current difficulties facing Spanish cycling. Several teams are under financial pressure. For example, Caisse d’Epargne is set to lose its title sponsor at the end of the year. While it is reported as having one backer on board for 2011, it has secured just three million euros thus far and is searching for a secondary sponsor in order to make up for the shortfall.
As a result, its lead rider Luis León Sanchez is considering offers from other squads, including Rabobank, and other riders may also be heading elsewhere.