2011 Leopard Trek season Manager Brian NygaardNygaard left the team on September 7 following the announcement of the merger with One-day victories 4 Stage race overall victories 2 Stage race stage victories 16 Next season
The 2011 season for , its first, began in January at the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Giro di Lombardia. As a UCI ProTeam, they were automatically invited and obligated to send a squad to every race in the UCI World Tour. The team formed for 2011 as a Luxembourgish national project and boasts that nation's two premier riders, Andy and Fränk Schleck. Several riders from the Schleck brothers' former joined the new team.
The team was built for strong showings in the classic cycle races, and includes the best classics rider from the 2010 season, world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara. Though Cancellara did not win any race that awarded points to the UCI World Tour, he consistently placed highly enough that he was briefly the world number one rider in the midst of the classics season. Thanks to Cancellara's performances and the Schleck brothers both finishing on the podium at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the team was also in the top spot for a time.
Team member Wouter Weylandt died after crashing during stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia, leading to the team's mass withdrawal the next day. Though he won a stage with a long solo breakaway in the mountains, and wore the race leader's yellow jersey for a day, Andy Schleck was runner-up at the Tour de France for the third consecutive year.Andy Schleck was later elevated to the position of winner in the 2010 Tour de France, though at the time of the 2011 race this had not yet happened Brother Fränk joined him on the podium in third place.
The team won its final race under the Leopard name, with Oliver Zaugg finishing first at the Giro di Lombardia. For 2012, the team was set to merge with the American , under the new name . Though most of that team's management and sponsors were to come on board, the resultant squad continued to be based in Luxembourg under the same license, meaning it is a continuation of this franchise and not the American one.
2011 roster Ages as of January 1, 2011.
Riders' 2010 teams
Rider2010 teamDaniele BennatiFabian CancellaraWill Clarkestagiaire ()Stefan DeniflBrice FeilluJakob FuglsangLinus GerdemannDominic KlemmeAnders LundMaxime MonfortMartin MortensenGiacomo Nizzoloneo-proStuart O'Grady
Rider2010 teamMartin PedersenJoost PosthumaThomas RohreggerAndy SchleckFränk SchleckTom StamsnijderBruno Piresneo-proDavide ViganòJens VoigtRobert WagnerFabian WegmannWouter WeylandtOliver Zaugg
Genesis of the new team
It was first reported shortly after the conclusion of the 2010 Tour de France that Andy and Fränk Schleck would leave , the team for which they had each ridden for the entirety of their respective careers, at the conclusion of that season. It was soon revealed that they would spearhead a new team, one based in their native Luxembourg, led by former staff Kim Andersen and Brian Nygaard. Luxembourg real estate tycoon Flavio Becca was eventually revealed as the team's owner. Andersen and Nygaard sought him out in May 2010 for advice. Becca, a sports fan, had plans to form a new cycling team himself, and he offered Nygaard the position of general manager for his team, essentially combining their ambitions. Becca also brought Andersen on, giving the Dane a position as a sporting director. Fränk Schleck later revealed that he and his brother had had little to do with the formation of the team, being approached with the prospect of joining at the 2010 Tour of Luxembourg in June. Despite a good relationship with manager Bjarne Riis, the brothers felt the opportunity to ride for a "home-based team" was too good to pass up. Andersen made similar comments, saying that the team would have gone forward even if the Schleck brothers rode elsewhere in 2011.
A solid portion of the team's ridership came from just as the Schlecks had, as eight of the eleven riders to depart in the 2010 offseason did so for this team. The most prominent of these was four-time world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara, who was under contract to for 2011 and had to buy his way out of it. After doing so, the Swiss rider signed with the team for three years. The team had hired a roster of 25 riders at the time of their presentation, with Thomas Rohregger joining in late February.
No title sponsor was announced for the team in 2010, as it went about signing riders for its inaugural season. It was known simply as the "Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project" for the first several months of its existence. Even as the end of 2010 neared, Nygaard steadfastly refused to reveal the team's official name, opting to hold off on doing so until the team's official presentation on January 6, 2011. Team member Jakob Fuglsang perhaps inadvertently revealed part of the name in an interview about three weeks before the team's presentation, saying the team would be called "Team Leopard" and that Leopard would be the name in the center of the jersey. Trek, which signed on as a bike supplier in September, was revealed as a title sponsor at the team's presentation, officially making the team's name Leopard Trek. The Leopard name has no particular meaning; it reflects Becca's holding company and is simply an animal he likes. The team presentation itself was something of a spectacle, featuring gymnasts, race videos, and presentations for each rider in front of an audience of 4,000 people, culminating in Nygaard and all riders appearing on stage wearing suit jackets and black scarves as they posed for photos. Shortly after the team's presentation, Trek sent out a primer to cycling media detailing their preferences that the team not be referred to with the prefix "Team" as some other teams are and that there be no hyphen between the sponsors' names. They also specified a preferred verbal pronunciation and that when referred to in print, the team's name should appear in all capital letters. This last request was not widely adhered to.
When the UCI released its list of teams graded according to their hierarchy that decided who would receive a World Tour license, this team's signees put them at the top, making them world number one before they even existed. This did not guarantee the team a top-level license, it simply qualified them for it, but they were later announced as having received a four-year World Tour license. Whether intentionally or incidentally, this corresponded to the initial financial guarantee Becca put up for the team. Nygaard hailed the license acquisition as the fruition of many months of hard work. This afforded the team automatic invitations to all World Tour events, including the season's three Grand Tours.
One-day races
Spring classics
Klemme got the team's first-ever win early in the spring season, at Le Samyn. After a solo escapee was caught by an elite 12-rider group that came clear of the peloton, Klemme timed his attack on the day's final climb with precision and stayed out front for victory by eight seconds over Kevyn Ista. The team came to the first monument race of the season, Milan–San Remo, with high ambitions. Cancellara aimed for a second triumph in the race, having previously won the 2008 edition, but he recognized that slipping away unmarked in the race's final kilometers as he did three years prior would be difficult to do again. He considered Philippe Gilbert to be his principal rival for the race. Cancellara and O'Grady made the day's major selection on the Le Manie climb, after a crash from the finish. O'Grady hit out on the attack a few times shortly before the end of the race, but it was Cancellara who was present in an eight-rider group that formed on the Poggio which decided the race. These eight riders represented eight different teams, so no one was able to get a proper leadout. After Gilbert, Vincenzo Nibali, and Yoann Offredo opened up the sprint, Cancellara tried to come around them for the win, but was beaten at the line by 's Matthew Goss. Cancellara was deeply disappointed to finish second, feeling that even though he had done one of the best sprints of his life, he had not done adequately to pay off his team's efforts on the day.
Cancellara was noticeably still recovering from his Milan–San Remo effort at Dwars door Vlaanderen, where he tried to attack for victory in the finale, but faded quickly and finished only 36th. The squad's best-placed rider was Posthuma in 31st. Cancellara's recovery was perhaps complete at the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke. After a series of mechanical incidents, resulting in several wheel changes and then a whole bike change, Cancellara sped past the trailing peloton on the Oude Kwaremont climb and effortlessly bridged to the front of the race. Once there, he left even the front group on the road well behind him, winning the race by a full minute over second placed Vladimir Gusev. Cancellara said he was more impressed with this victory than when he won the same race in 2010, and analysis of his win suggested he stood as the odds-on favorite for the Tour of Flanders. Jonathan Vaughters, whose team had effectively controlled the front of the race but were powerless to stop Cancellara, stated that should an on-form Cancellara ever get even five seconds' advantage at the front of a race near the end, he would likely not be seen again. Vaughters joked that rival teams would need a sniper to stop the Swiss classics specialist.
Cancellara's pedigree, 2011 successes, and status as defending champion made him a major favorite for the second monument race, the Tour of Flanders. Cancellara put in a seemingly decisive move from the head of the main field on the Leberg, the fourteenth cobbled climb on the day's parcours. He quickly opened up a time gap of over a minute, and the race seemed to be decided. He cracked on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, however, and was swept up by an elite leading group of favorites and contenders. He put in a second acceleration on the last climb, the Bosberg, and was followed by Sylvain Chavanel and Nick Nuyens. Having perhaps spent himself too early in the race by attacking solo and not working with other riders to gain a large time gap, Cancellara could only manage third of the three. After the race, Cancellara blasted Nuyens and the other riders in the race, saying they only rode to keep him from winning. He referred to himself as a "gladiator" and said that the manner in which Nuyens won, staying in Cancellara's slipstream and then outsprinting him with the line in view, had no value in his eyes.