Van Schip’s team reaches breaking point after latest disqualification: “It costs too much money and energy”

The disqualification of Jan-Willem van Schip has caused quite a stir. The Dutch rider was pulled from a race for the third time in eight months, and whether that was justified remains open to debate. What is clear, though, is that Azerion / Villa Valkenburg, Van Schip’s team, is also feeling the consequences of the situation. And the team does not have much more room to absorb them.

At the Ronde de l’Oise, Van Schip first received a fine for his position on the bike, despite the matter having already been discussed with the jury. Later, he was removed from the race because he had put a bottle in the front of his jersey. “I was shocked, because I didn’t know either,” sports director Johan Berghmans told Sporza. “Those are all things we are not focused on as a team.”

From there, things went from bad to worse. “There is no way to resist the UCI, so yes, he had to leave the race, but he didn’t want to. He is a super sweet guy, but he has his edges. He knows all the rules, so he felt he was acting correctly. According to him, that rule comes into force on July 1. I said: stop now and leave the race. You can’t change it anyway, but he stood his ground and kept riding.”

Photos then emerged that appeared to show Van Schip being removed from the road forcefully by a motorbike officer, but that appears not to be true. “The police on the motorbike did effectively take him out of the race. But it certainly was not heavy-handed. According to Jan-Willem, the police came to ask him to stop. Maybe that was done in a strict way, but I don’t know. In the end, he did do it voluntarily.”

“So, for the sake of clarity, he was not pulled off his bike by the police in a rough way. They simply did their job. He was in shock afterwards, but that comes from his mindset. He was lying in the grass verge crying and shaking. Everyone was simply worried about him.”

For Van Schip, it is sad that he has been disqualified yet again, but for Azerion / Villa Valkenburg, the limit has now also been more or less reached. “Because of all the little things piling up, he is obviously being watched. In stage two, we had an issue over his shifting device. After a few kilometers, he had to take another bike.”

“Our mechanics then solved it, and in stage three it happened again, so he had to change bikes again,” Berghmans said. “With a normal rider, nothing would happen after that, but with him, his bike is then checked completely the next day. They really are looking at him, and as a team it is genuinely no longer enjoyable. For us, the situation is becoming a bit untenable.”

The team, after all, does not exactly have an unlimited budget. “We are only a small continental team, you know. We are absolutely not Visma or anything like that. Everywhere Jan-Willem races, it almost always costs us 1,000 Swiss francs in fines. As a team, that is unsustainable.” For Azerion / Villa Valkenburg, then, something has to change.

“Ultimately, we have to get to work with Jan-Willem. He has to get out of that gray area. Nobody becomes better or happier from that. He has to move into the green zone and ride a bike like every other rider, but that is very difficult with him. As a sports director, you want to focus on your whole team. In that stage, I ultimately spent half a day dealing with one rider and the jury, and we do not want that anymore. It costs too much money and energy, and it brings nothing in return. You always lose against the UCI.”

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]