Team Radio Shack Honcho Exposed

-by Amy Bush

The Tour Down Under will mark the beginning of the 2010 road racing season and it will also be the debut of the newest American Pro Tour team, Team Radioshack. It is a team whose first announced rider was none other than Lance Armstrong himself and a team that would ultimately cause the exodus of almost half of the 2009 Astana team.

Of the 9 riders who rode the 2009 Tour de France for Astana, 8 have made the move to Team Radioshack-----Lance Armstrong, Yaroslav Popovych, Gregy Rast, Haimar Zubeldia, Dimitriy Muravyev, Sergio Paulino, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden, a move that suggests that, for these riders, the man behind 13 Grand Tour wins is who they want to ride for despite leaving behind the 2009 Tour de France winner, a move that shows great loyalty to Johan Bruyneel.

Born in Belgium in 1964, Johan started his competitive cycling career as a child and did quite well on the local, regional and national levels. He became a professional in 1989 and, over the span of his 10 years as a pro peloton, he had teammates such as Laurent Jalabert, Robbie McEwen and Leon van Bon. As a professional rider, Johan experienced success on many levels including winning the Tour de l’Avenir in 1990 and Rund um den Henninger Turm in 1991 and finishing 3rd at the 1995 Vuelta a Espana. He also had the honor of wearing the Maillot Jaune at the 1995 Tour de France, an honor most professional cyclists dream of yet only a chosen few get to realize. But perhaps it’s his Stage 6 win in the 1993 Tour de France from Evreux to Amiens that is his greatest achievement. On this stage, Johan set the record for the fastest stage in Tour de France history. It was a record he would hold until the 1999 Tour when Mario Cipollini came along and broke it, an event to which Johan replied in an interview “……records are set to be broken.”

In 1998, Johan retired as a professional cyclist and was offered the position of Director Sportif for the US Postal Cycling Team, Lance Armstrong’s team. The combination of Johan’s tactical brilliance and Lance’s determination and physical talent as a rider would lead to the domination of the Tour de France for 7 straight years until Lance’s retirement in 2005. US Postal morphed into Discovery Channel in 2005 and Johan saw great success with both teams including Lance’s Tour wins, George Hincapie’s Spring Classic wins at Ghent-Wevelgem and Kuurn-Brussels-Kuurn and podium placing at Paris-Roubaix, Jani Brajkovic’s win at the 2007 Tour de Georgia and Alberto’s Tour win in 2007.

With Discovery Channel not wanting to renew their sponsorship at the end of the 2007 season, the ultimate decision, as heartbreaking as it was at the time to the fans, was for the team to disband and everyone to move on to other teams. Johan announced his retirement from the sport, but those plans were very quickly scrubbed when he was asked to take over the scandal-ridden Astana team to try to save it. Johan agreed and took with him the central core of what was Discovery Channel and, at the same time, the loyalty of many fans. Over the next two years, Johan did save Astana and turned it into one of the strongest and most successful Pro Tour teams on the road.

The success Johan achieved with Astana was really of no surprise. He is a man who was born to win in some form or another, whether it be his own victories or as the leader, confidant and motivator of champions. He has an instinct and desire to win and is able to find something positive even in losses to be gained. In his book, We Might As Well Win, he talks a lot about what it takes to win starting with the belief that you can and will be a winner and to always stay focused on the win and not let other things be a distraction. Communication is very important as well whether it’s to tell a national champion that they will not be selected for the team’s Tour de France squad, calling your team leader and telling him he has to come off the beach and immediately fly to Italy due to a last minute invite to the Giro d’Italia or talking with potential recruits for the team.

His instinct to win also gives him the ability to recognize talent in young riders and often times bring those riders to the team years before they’ve reached their potential becoming that leader, confidant and motivator mentioned earlier that helps turn these riders into the champions they are meant to be. This isn’t something that just any director can do and many riders sense that and seek him out wanting to join his team. An example of this is Haimar Zubeldia who joined Johan at Astana for the 2009 season and asked to get out of his contract to follow him to Radioshack. He wanted to continue to ride for a man he has always admired.

When Lance came out of retirement last year, he joined Johan and many of his former teammates at Astana. At the time, it was just to be for one seasong but, in July, he announced that he would continue on in 2010 with his own team to be sponsored by Radioshack. Johan would be the team manager and Dirk Demol and Viatcheslav Ekimov would be directors along with former Discovery Channel rider Jose Azevedo. In addition, Chechu Rubiera would, once again, postpone his retirement and Jason McCartney and Fuyu Li would also be riding for Johan again. Radioshack is looking like an incredibly strong team with a “deep bench”, so to speak. They have riders that can do well in the Spring Classics as well as many current and former national champions, riders who have either won the Tour de France, placed on the podium of the Tour de France or finished in the top 10 of the Tour de France and a combination of older, more experienced riders that can help mentor the younger riders that will one day be the leaders of the team.

So what is it about this man that calls for such loyalty across the board? Johan is a smart man. He has a talent for languages and is fluent in six including Dutch, English, Spanish, German, French and Italian. His talent as a rider was easily translated into talent as a director and, in one year, helped Lance become a Tour de France champion. He was able to take a young, almost unknown rider and, in one year with him, help turn him into a Tour de France champion. When asked to save a team that was headed for total collapse due to drug scandals, he did so and turned it into a successful, winning team in one year. Not afraid to take chances, he has even used money from his own salary to bring a rider he believed in to US Postal when there was nothing left in the budget for said rider. And, after receiving an invite to the 2008 Giro d’Itlalia with just one week to prepare, he was able to gather the riders together, get the equipment there on time and lead the team and Alberto to a victory that some would have though was impossible.

Despite all the naysayers and critics out there who would love to see him fail, Johan remains calm and professional in the face of all challenges and inspires his riders and fans to do the same.