Dutch rider has a verbal agreement with Lefevere’s team for 2011 according to De Telegraaf
Marc de Maar’s move from Dutch ProTour squad, Rabobank, to the American Continental outfit, UnitedHealthcare/Maxxis, for the 2010 season was a rather surprising one, as was his recent license change from the Netherlands to the Netherlands Antilles. The change of scenery and opportunities seem to have made a difference for the 26-year-old, who previously spent six seasons in the Rabobank system: two on the development team, and the other four racing on the ProTour.
De Maar showed a lot of promise in his early years, but never seemed to come good on the expectations. After spending over a quarter of his life wearing orange and blue, a change was in store, and De Maar headed Stateside to the American powerhouse squad of UnitedHealthcare.
De Maar’s 2010 season has seen the young rider race to his potential. The Dutchman showed well early on in the season, but really hit his stride at the Tour of California. He was a factor in most of the decisive stages over the weeklong trip through the Golden Stage and ended up a solid 13th place. Not long after that, De Maar won two stages at the Tour de Beauce and eventually finished 3rd overall. The happy series of results continued for De Maar when he took part in his first ever National Championships in the Netherlands Antilles – unsurprisingly, he took both the road race and the time trial.
The success of the hitherto underperformed has not gone unnoticed, and it appears that de Maar will be headed back to Europe in 2011. According to De Telegraaf, De Maar has an oral agreement with Patrick Lefevere’s QuickStep squad.
The return of De Maar to the ProTour in Europe would be yet another success story for the UnitedHealthcare team. The dominant American squad has raced under a number of different monikers over the past number of years: UnitedHealthcare in 2010, OUCH in 2009, and HealthNet in the years leading up to that. While the team name has changed, as has the management, the team’s penchant for pushing riders onward and upward to the ProTour has been a common thread through the years: Greg Henderson, John Murphy, Ryder Hesjedal, and Jason McCartney have all made the jump to the highest level after racing for the California based team.
Currently, de Maar is taking part in the NRC stage race, the Cascade Classic in Bend, Oregon – he took the top spot in the difficult first stage with teammate, Rory Sutherland, also a former Rabobank rider, following in 2nd.