The “what team will Mark Cavendish race for in 2023?” was the million dollar question this Spring and was a daily fixture of the cycling news cycle for what felt like months.
While the rumor mill was churning, Astana fired one of its riders Miguel Ángel López for vague “new evidence,” a decision for which López has sued the team.
When the speculations were finally confirmed that Cav would be riding for Astana this year, it was the culmination of quite the “will he or won’t he?” drama.
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It seemed to take a long time to get the contract finalized, and Cyclingnews.com reported that while the delay was initially attributed to the trial of the men who had broken into Cav’s home and robbed him at knifepoint, the reason was, in fact, Cavendish’s loyalty to his career-long sponsor, Oakley.
The clash of the sponsors
Astana has had an equally long relationship with its sponsor, the eyewear, apparel, and bike luggage brand Scicon. And while Cavendish was conspicuously sans-sunglasses in all the Astana promotional photography released following the announcement that he’d joined the team, when he lined up for his first race in Astana colors he was wearing his trademark Oakleys. And Scicon was not pleased.
The situation came to a head this week with Scicon’s CEO and Astana’s team boss, ex-pro Alexandr Vinokourov trading jabs in the press
“It is unfortunate that individual riders can compromise sponsorship agreements in this way,” said Scicon's CEO, Heinrich Dannhauser in a statement reported on Cyclingnews.com. “It is even more unfortunate that a team would not stand up for what is ethically the right thing to do - honoring the agreement and recognizing the significant investments that were made by Scicon.
“We took a strong stance in this case and could not make an exception for one rider and believe all sponsors of professional cycling should take note,” Dannhauser added.
Vinokourov wasted no time issuing a strong statement of his own, insisting the team had honored its contract.
“The team declares with full responsibility that there were no violations of our contractual obligations respect to Scicon and we fully respected this agreement until the moment it has been terminated,” Vinokourov said. “At a certain point, we did not find common ground with the company and, as a result, the team decided to exercise its right, prescribed in the contract, to terminate the agreement with Scicon with the payment of appropriate monetary compensation. Astana Qazaqstan Team has always 100% fulfilled and fulfills all its sponsorship obligations and will adhere to this policy in the future.”
Rumors of a lawsuit are swirling
While it hasn’t been announced yet, it’s rumored that Scicon is assessing whether it has the grounds for a lawsuit against Astana. Despite this contentious situation, Scicon remains committed to supporting the sport at the professional level through its continued sponsorship of other WorldTour teams such as UAE and Jayco-AlUla.
“Our brand has grown significantly over the last three seasons. Many of the world's best riders use Scicon eyewear," said Dannhauser. "This unfortunate situation will not deter us at a time when there are very exciting developments in our business and so much to look forward to.”
Natascha Grief got her first bike shop job before she was old enough to drink. After a six-year stint as a mechanic, earning a couple pro-mechanic certifications and her USA Cycling Race Mechanics license, she became obsessed with framebuilding and decided she wanted to do that next. After Albert Eistentraut literally shooed her off his doorstep, admonishing that if she pursued framebuilding she will be poor forever, she landed an apprenticeship with framebuilder Brent Steelman in her hometown of Redwood City, CA. After that, she spent several years working for both large and not-so-large cycling brands. Somewhere in there she also became a certified bike fitter. Natascha then became a certified personal trainer and spent nine years honing her skills as a trainer and coach, while also teaching Spin. During the dumpster fire that was the year 2020, she opened a fitness studio and began contributing regularly to Runner’s World and Bicycling as a freelance writer. In 2022, she joined the staff of Bicycling as News Editor.
