Henk Vogels makes a live call in to Australian TV coverage of the Amgen Tour of California. (Image credit: Mark Johnson/www.ironstring.com)
Pegasus Sports has announced its four sport directors for the coming season. Hendrik Redant, Henk Vogels, Egon van Kessel and Edward Beamon will lead the first Australian pro cycling team to compete on the Professional Continental level in Europe.
"With Hendrik, Henk, Egon and Ed as our sports directors, we are bringing to our team a lot of different characters with different backgrounds, but with a lot of experience," said Pegasus Sports CEO Chris White. "This team of sports directors will work really well together, as we saw already in the first meetings we had."
Redant will be the head sports director. "Working on a big new cycling project with a group of very motivated people is the next step in my cycling career," he said.
"Because I always wanted to share my experience and I feel lots of affection for Australia, being able to work as a sports director on the Pegasus Sports project is in a way a double dream coming true for me. My ambition is to bring together this young and promising team and help them perform at the top of international cycling."
Redant, 48, rode professionally from 1987 to 1997. In 1998 he was an assistant manager for the TVM team which was involved in that year's Tour de France Festina scandal, during which he was taken into custody. He has most recently served as a director for Omega Pharma-Lotto.
Vogels, 37, who rode professionally from 1995 to 2008, has been with the team, formerly called Fly V, since 2009. Beamon was the team's technical director this year, coming from the US teams Navigators and Team Type 1.
"The chance to create something new together with these guys appeals to me, and I think it will also be a lot of fun," White said.
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Van Kessel, 54, was a director at Cervelo TestTeam. He had been the national coach for the Dutch men from 2001 to 2008 and also had extensive background with the Dutch national federation and with pro cycling teams.
Pegasus, which has signed such riders as Robbie McEwen, Daryl Impey, Christian Knees and Svein Tuft, had hoped for a ProTeam licence for the coming season. It will ride under the Professional Continental ranking, and is expected to announce its name sponsor soon.
