Omega Pharma-Lotto starts New Year with new name

Team Omega Pharma-Lotto has greeted the New Year with a new name and a new website, as well as its wish list for 2010 and a look back at 2009.

The team has taken on the full name of co-sponsor Omega Pharma, publicising the company itself rather than individual products as it has in the past.

Looking back to the past year, general manager Geert Coeman noted that the team got off to “a (rather too) slow start” on the season, but things developed well over the season. The year was capped off not only by Philippe Gilbert's string of victories the end of the year but also by Cadel Evans' victory in the World Championships.

The team's top priority this year will be winning a Spring Classic. Gilbert will aim for Milano-Sanremo “and, why not,” at the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Leif Hoste “will forget his last unhappy year and look forward to the Ronde and Paris-Roubaix."

With Evans having left the team, Jurgen Van den Broeck will be the man for the Grand Tours, helped by newcomer Daniel Moreno.

Sports Manager Marc Sergeant also shared his thoughts, noting that 2009 “ brought us all sorts of miseries and problems as well as disillusions by results and by men, but I prefer to remember the fantastic moments we lived through our riders.”