In the News: Riis attempts to buy team from Tinkov
Reports indicate that Bjarne Riis is trying to buy back his team from Oleg Tinkov after parting ways with the organization earlier in 2015.
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Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet reports that Bjarne Riis, the former manager of Tinkoff-Saxo is making moves to buy the WorldTour team off its millionaire owner Oleg Tinkov, who parted ways with the Dane earlier in 2015. Prior to 2013, when he sold it to Tinkov, Riis owned the team organization.
Riis, who was recently implicated in a doping inquiry that revealed his team’s unsavory practices, would need to secure funding for the team’s operations if he were to purchase the WorldTour license. Ekstra Bladet estimates the team’s budget to be more than 120 million kroner per year — about 16 million euro. He has a relationship with Saxo Bank that dates back to 2008. In late 2013, he brought the bank on board as a title sponsor to support his team’s 2014 campaign. Currently, the outfit is simply listed as “Tinkoff” on its 2016 UCI WorldTeam license application.
The team is home to the current world road race champion, Peter Sagan, as well as this season’s Giro d’Italia winner, Alberto Contador.