“I am happy because the stability of the team is guaranteed,” says CEO Patrick Lefevere
Belgian pharmaceutical company Omega Pharma has committed to a further two years as principle sponsor of the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team. The deal was signed in a meeting today in Amsterdam, Netherlands, between team owner Zdeněk Bakala, Executive Chairman of the Board Bessel Kok, CEO Patrick Lefevere, and Marc Coucke, CEO of Omega Pharma.
“I am happy because the stability of the team is guaranteed,” Lefevere said. “I would like to thank Marc Coucke and Omega Pharma for the trust they put in us. We will do our best to repay their confidence with great results in the next seasons. The next step is to renew contracts with our other sponsors until the end of 2015, and at the same time start thinking about our future beyond that.”
Omega Pharma has been involved with cycling since 2003, when its vitamin brand was the co-sponsor of Lefevere’s Quick Step-Davitamon team for two years. It then moved over to become main sponsor of the Davitamon-Lotto team in 2005-6, then changed the product it was promoting to its pregnancy test kits with Predictor-Lotto in 2007, and its anti-snoring sprat with Silence-Lotto in 2008-9.
After two years of Omega Pharma-Lotto in 2010-11, it changed back to the Lefevere’s team, after differences of opinion over the more Belgian Lotto team.
Having spent two years as principle sponsor of the team that saw Tom Boonen dominate the 2012 Cobbled Classics, win the World team time trial championships, and take several big victories in 2013 through riders like Mark Cavendish, Tony Martin, Zdeněk Štybar, and Sylvain Chavanel, the company has had no reason to regret its decision.
“We are really happy about our relations with the team not just for the results, but the culture of the team and what the team represents in the world of cycling image-wise,” said Coucke “When we started with the team two years ago we had as an objective to be among the top 10 of the UCI Classification. Now we go for two more years to be even better and find a stable place in the top five of the UCI WorldTour.”