"The situation is becoming a bit untenable," says van Schip's manager
Jan-Willem van Schip's manager at the Azérion-Villa Valkenburg team, Johan Berghmans, told Sporza that the team can not longer absorb the cost of van Schip's repeated UCI rule violations.
"We are just a small Continental team, you know," he told Sporza. "We are absolutely not Visma or whatever. Everywhere Jan-Willem races, it almost always costs us 1,000 Swiss Francs in fines. As a team, that is unsustainable."
"For us, the situation is becoming a bit untenable," he said.
Van Schip was disqualified once again from a race this week. He stuffed a bottle down the front of his jersey, which the race jury deemed illegal under Rule 1.3.032, which bans anything that changes the morphology, or shape, of the rider. It's essentially a rule banning fairings.
"Ultimately, we have to work with Jan-Willem," Berghmans said. "He needs to get out of that grey zone. No one benefits or becomes happier there. He needs to move to the green zone and ride a bike like any other rider, but that is very difficult with him.
"As a team manager, you want to focus on your entire team. In that stage, I ended up spending half a day dealing with one rider and the jury, and we don't want that anymore. It costs too much money and energy, and it doesn't pay off. You always lose to the UCI."
