A professional cycling team to be formed by cycling YouTube star
Bas Tietema has been announced with Unibet as title sponsor. The team will be called TDT-Unibet Cycling.
The team will start at Continental level next season. It has also revealed the name of six riders who are going to wear team’s jersey. Bas Tietema, Hartthijs de Vries, Martijn Budding, Joren Bloem, Tomáš Kopecky as well as former British WorldTour rider Harry Tanfield are confirmed riders for now.
“It was a pretty tricky situation where you are actually playing on several chessboards at the same time. The contracts were, on the other hand, not yet finished with the sponsors. While on the other side you already have to be busy with the riders for the team,” said Tietema.
Hugo Haak, manager of Dutch Olympic track team will act as Sporting Director. “I'm here to create a serious team with high-level coaching. Over the past years at the KNWU, we've worked hard to professionalise the sporting culture within the track team This is the experience I want to bring to the road and, yes, that's exciting for me.I've always followed Tour de Tietema with interest,” said Haak.
Josse Wester clarifies that team will not be built around Bas and they are open to new riders with potential.“Bas will ride for the team next year but that does not mean that we are going to build a team around Bas.We are mainly looking for very talented riders who can form a strong collective with him and who can ride an interesting race programme mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands,” concluded Wester.