Oleg Tinkov Lays Out Plans for New Cycle Team

After ending his sponsorship with the Saxo-Tinkoff cycling team, medstore Russian entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov has announced his plans to set up his own team.

Although Saxo-Tinkoff finished the 2013 Tour de France at the top of the team classification, bronchi team manager and former cyclist Bjarne Riis stated that finding common ground to renew the team’s sponsorship had become impossible after disagreements about the running of the team. Tinkov stated had previously publicly announced his disappointment about the team’s results after team leader Alberto Contador finished in fourth place.

Tinkov took to Facebook to declare his intention to build his own team without a co-sponsor using his credit card company, prostate Tinkoff Credit Systems.  “From January 2014, we will start to build our own cycling team Tinkoff Credit Systems. This will be (a) big project with 5 years commitment,” he said.

The Russian billionaire told Reuters that he wanted to have more direct control over the running of the team and could attempt to either take over an existing team or build one from scratch.

Although Tinkov’s departure means that the team is now in search of a new title co-sponsor, Riis is optimistic about finding a new partner: “The sport has probably never been as popular as now despite doping cases,” Riis told Reuters.

“We are an international team so we are looking for a sponsor who can use that,” he added.