Corendon Circus Rebrands as Alpecin-Fenix and Confirms Sam Gaze Signing
Mathieu Van Der Poel's Cornedon Circus team has today announced it will be rebranded as Alpecin Fenix and that it has signed Kiwi racer Sam Gaze.
The team will continue to race on Canyon bikes and they will also continue to be multi-disciplinary, racing in mtb, cyclocross and on the road. The team has already enjoyed its first taste of success as both Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and Mathieu van der Poel picked up wins at the cyclocross GP Sven Nys yesterday. From what we can tell from pictures of that event, the team will now be wearing navy blue kit as opposed to the white, orange and blue of Corendon Circus.
The press release also confirms that Sam Gaze has moved over to the team from Specialized. Gaze wil be focussing predominantly on cross country racing and no doubt keen to return to his winning form of 2018.
Despite his continuing success in cyclocross and on the road, the team confirmed that Van Der Poel's main target for 2020 is Olympics mtb gold in Tokyo.
Press Release: Canyon
A name change for 2020 but still a collaboration with Canyon Bicycles. Alpecin-Fenix is the new name of the multidisciplinary team led by brothers Philip and Christoph Roodhooft, featuring Mathieu Van Der Poel and competing with a UCI Pro Continental license.
Mathieu van der Poel will lead Alpecin-Fenix across the board, competing in cyclocross, road racing and cross-country mountain bike racing. Mathieu van der Poel's #1 objective for the 2020 season is the Gold Medal in the XCO bike race at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Roman Arnold, founder and managing director of Canyon Bicycles GmbH, explained “We are really pleased to continue our collaboration with Alpecin-Fenix as bike sponsor and partner. Since the beginning, we have believed in Philip and Christoph Roodhooft's vision to create a multi-disciplinary team that can be competitive in more than one discipline. And having the incomparable Mathieu van der Poel racing Canyon Bicycles on and off road and in cyclocross is simply unbelievable. We've enjoyed an incredible number of wins in all categories with this team, so we can't wait for the season to begin for Alpecin-Fenix!”
Besides van der Poel, Alpecin-Fenix will feature many other world-class cyclists in 2020 including cyclocross star Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and cross-country mountain bike riders Sam Gaze and Ronja Eibl. For road racing, prolific Italian sprinter Sascha Modolo will join Alpecin-Fenix for results in both the spring classics and the large tours. Belgian champion Tim Merlier is back for more wins in 2020 while Danish track specialist Lasse Norman Hansen is an emerging force in road racing. Alpecin-Fenix will include a solid German contingent, with Alexander Krieger joining the reigning German CX champion Marcel Meisen and experienced Philipp Walsleben (former U23 cyclocross world champion).
Team Alpecin-Fenix will race on road with the Canyon Aeroad, Ultimate and Speedmax. In mountain bike, the team can choose the Canyon Lux full-suspension race bike or the hardtail Canyon Exceed for cross-country events. The Canyon Inflite is the bike of choice for cyclocross and Canyon Grail for gravel racing.
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45 Comments
Good luck in 2020 Matthieu
Cadel rode for the biggest teams in the world (eventually).
XCO wise think Lars Forster is going to be hard to beat this year.
Head injuries like he suffered can have a life long impact both physically and mentally.
We know he has the potential to be very strong, especially in the XCC events.
IMPO, His weakness has always been his technical skills. If Nino is an "A", Sam's a "C" at best.
I have some doubts concerning his full recovery but hope they're misconceived.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Stellenbosch had some really cool features but it wasn't a super technical course.
I hope Sam has made a full recovery and helps make the Men's side of the house as competitive as the Women's side but I still have my doubts. So we'll just have to see how things play out.