Over its 14-year existence, the WorldTour's only Australian team has been known by four different sponsor names, but besides team owner Gerry Ryan, one face has been there through all of it: Matt White, the longtime sports director and, most recently, the team's director of high performance and racing, who was so closely associated with the team he was often referred to as "Mr. GreenEdge" after the team's legal business name.
So Wednesday's announcement that White would leave the team with immediate effect caught the sport by surprise. It's rare for teams to dismiss directors mid-season, and rarer still for such an essential, high-level staffer like White to be let go on almost the literal eve of a pivotal race like the Giro d'Italia, which starts Friday. (That said, an immediate precedent was Ineos Grenadiers' sidelining – and later dismissal – of lead director Steve Cummings just prior to the 2024 Tour de France.)
Multiple current Jayco staff and riders told Escape Collective that the announcement was highly unexpected and abrupt; everyone Escape spoke to confirmed that they found out the news at roughly the same time it was announced to the public.
Did we do a good job with this story?
