Slipstream Sports, the holding company who owns the Cannondale–Drapac team, have today notified all riders and staff of the uncertainty of their organization’s future. The notification follows on from the team receving bad news in relation to a new partner they had hoped would be joining the team.
The team was founded by former professional Jonathan Vaughters in 2003 as a junior development squad. Its sponsor was 5280 magazine in Denver. In 2007, Slipstream Sports LLC took over the management and the team raced under the name Team Slipstream.
From 2008, the team raced with Garmin as it’s primary sponsor until 2015 when Cannondale became the primary sponsor. This year, the team have performed very well with Rigoberto Uran winning a stage and finishing 2nd overall at the Tour de France. Pierre Rolland won a stage of the Giro d’Italia and Andrew Talansky won a stage of the Tour of California amongst other victories.
The full statement from the team is as follows:
Statement on future of Slipstream Sports
On Saturday morning, Slipstream Sports notified all riders and staff of the uncertainty of our organization’s future. Yesterday management received some discouraging news about a new partner we anticipated joining us in 2018.
Without this partner’s support, we cannot guarantee our financial security and subsequently our UCI WorldTour license for 2017.
We remain hopeful that this situation may resolve itself in the next few days and that the team may find new financial backing; however, without this guarantee, we felt an obligation to the individuals who make up our team to notify them of our current situation and give them time to look for their best options.
All Slipstream Sports staff have been released from any and all contractual obligations for 2018. All 2018 contracts will be honored if our future is secured.
We want to be clear. All of our current sponsors and partners (Cannondale, Drapac, Oath, POC) have remained committed to support our team in 2018. These sponsors have lived up to their promises; however, without additional financial backing, the numbers simply don’t add up.
We remain steadfastly invested in keeping this team alive. We believe in our team ethos, and we believe in the dedicated, passionate, hard-working and talented group we have assembled. We have several opportunities that we are exploring, and while we remain hopeful, we are not comfortable exposing our staff and riders to the uncertainties of our future – which prompted the team-wide email this morning.
We’ve overcome incredible odds for over a decade and can do it again, but we need someone to step forward and fill in that last piece of the puzzle. It would be an incredible bargain, that’s for certain. We are open to any conversations with new financial partners and supporters at this time.
