Ineos Grenadiers teammates Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe have expressed their confusion at the potential ‘mystery merger’ between Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep as the cycling world reacts to the big news that was first reported by WielerFlits on Sunday.
The former Tour de France winner was blindsided by the news on the latest episode of the duo's podcast, Watts Occurring, stating that he “had no idea about this until you told me just before coming on” to Rowe and followed up with his own doubts on the potential of Remco Evenepoel becoming teammates with any of the Jumbo-Visma rivals he’s raced against.
“The one thing I would say is that Remco hates Jumbo, and Jumbo hate Remco, so that’s not gonna work, is it? Unless they do different programmes,” said Thomas, partly tongue in cheek, knowing his words would be seen as provocative.
"You should hear what Roglič says about Remco,” he continued, as Rowe joked for them to “stir the pot now.”
After his comments were even pick-up and considered as serious by Belgian television, Thomas wrote on X: Maybe we shouldn’t joke about serious stuff on anymore?? #madebelgiantv."
Thomas couldn’t quite get his head around it as the duo discussed how unthinkable it was for such a dominant team to lose their co-title sponsor, with Jumbo ending their partnership with the Dutch team at the end of 2024.
“I’m not trying to start any rumours or anything, I’m just saying. For me, the only thing I would say is why would Jumbo want to do that? They’ve just won three Grand Tours.
“Because they're losing their headline sponsor, which is Jumbo,” replied Rowe. “But do you know what that says to me, that’s a sad state of affairs for cycling if that team [Jumbo-Visma] can’t get a new headline sponsor.”
Thomas went on to list the team’s accomplishments and strong roster, highlighting how “disappointing” it is for the sport.
“How can you not get another sponsor if you’ve done what you’ve just done like you’ve won the Tour [de France] the last two years, you’ve just dominated the last season, you’ve got the biggest riders, Van Aert in his own right is huge,” said Thomas. “That’s sad.”
The Welsh duo also empathised with the riders and staff whose jobs would be seriously at risk if the two teams were to merge given how two full squads of 30 and two full teams of staff simply won’t come close to fitting into one new ‘mega-team’ were it to form.
“There are 50 riders under contract. So what happens if they merge,” started Rowe. They’ve got 20 riders too many, so the obvious thing they’re going to do is pick the cheapest 20 riders, they’ve got contracts, so they’ll be forced to pay them out.
“So then 20 riders will get paid what their contract says to not ride their bike or go and find another team.
“Surely there’s got to be, in these massive organisations, better planning and foreseeing than that to just suddenly go let's merge and flick 20 people and pay them off. That’s a lot of money going to waste, and all the staff - how many people will lose their jobs?”
Thomas concurred with Rowe’s point, and if the WorldTour licence became available as a result of a merger, it could be taken up by a ProTeam, but they would have to deal with navigating the complexities involved in taking on pre-existing rider and staff contracts.
“You might think it’s a good thing initially,” said Thomas. “But half of the jobs are going to go, because you’ve got a maximum amount of riders anyway that you can have with the rules.
“Then why are you going to have 24 swannies (soigneurs) in the team? A lot of guys would be out, so that would be sad to see as well.”
The cycling world has reacted negatively to the potential merger, with Thomas and Rowe the latest to join the conversation after the likes of Brian Holm and Philippe Gilbert already raised their concerns at the potential “catastrophic consequences” the move could have on riders and the economy of professional cycling.
