The organisers of the Eindhoven ProTour team time trial have held a meeting on Thursday last week, concluding that the event created and first carried out in 2005 was a defeat on financial, organisational as well as sporting levels. The Dutch municipalities of Helmond, Best and Eindhoven, who hosted the race this season, complained about the lack of sponsorship deals to finance the event, which is also the subject of a responsibility dispute between the city of Eindhoven and the foundation Citydynamiek, which was first appointed as organiser but them backed out.
Furthermore, the race did not attract the expected media coverage, nor the great cyclist's names it was hoping for. The scheduling within the season's calendar, the fact that it no ProTour-points were awarded to individual riders and the unusual size of the teams - six riders vs. eight or nine in other races - were the reasons for the failure of the new team time trial, according to project manager Jack van den Eijnden. "The ratio between cost and quality must be optimised," Van den Eijnden told the Telegraaf.
