No license for Team H2O

Team H2O will not exist in 2009, as it did not provide the necessary bank guarantee to the Luxembourg Cycling Federation, which it needed to obtain its license as a Continental team.

Vincenzo Centrone was the last of three Luxemburger riders to have contact with team manager Max Radoni. On Saturday, the manager told him that the guarantee was coming from a small Italian bank, but needed time to arrive in the small nation. It had not arrived by Monday, which would have been too late anyway, as the UCI deadline was Sunday. "It's too bad," Centrone told the Luxemburger newspaper tageblatt. "The project was very interesting."

Another rider, Jempy Drucker, signed with the team when it was applying for a Professional Continental license. "It's all over," he said. "The project looked good, it seemed to be very serious, but now...." He has not had any recent contact with the team, and said that if the Luxembourg federation had not informed him, he would have learned the bad news from the press.

Drucker said he doubted that the bank guarantee would arrive, and even if it did, it would not affect him, as he was now on the search for a new team.(SW)