NTT Pro Cycling Team

NTT Pro Cycling Team
Team data
UCI code	NTT
nationality	South Africa
License	UCI WorldTeam
operator	Ryder Cycling
First season	2008
discipline	Street
Wheel manufacturer	BMC
staff
General manager	Douglas Ryder
Team manager	Bjarne Riis
Sportl. ladder	Lars Michaelsen Alex Sans Vega
Name story
Years	Surname
2008 2009 2010 2011–2015 2016–2019 2020-	Team MTN MTN Cycling MTN Energade MTN Qhubeka Team Dimension Data NTT Pro Cycling Team
Team photo
Website
africasteam.com

The NTT Pro Cycling Team is a South African cycling team based in Johannesburg .

Organization and profile

The team was founded in 2008 as the Continental Team and took part in the UCI Continental Circuits . She initially drove most of the races in Africa .

For the 2013 season, the team, then still under the name MTN Qhubeka , was the first African team to be licensed as a Professional Continental Team and was thus able to compete in races of the UCI WorldTour upon invitation . On March 17, 2013, the team with Gerald Ciolek won their first World Tour race with the spring classic Milan – Sanremo . In 2014 it was also the first African team to take part in the Vuelta a España and finally in 2015 as the first African team to take part in the Tour de France .

Until 2015, the namesake were the main sponsor Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN), a South African company in the field of business communications, and the volunteer organization Qhubeka ( Nguni , German for advancing ), which is supported by MTN and gives children in rural communities bicycles to help them cope with everyday life which is also a joint project of both sponsors. In 2016 the IT service provider Dimension Data took over the sponsorship and the team received a license as a UCI WorldTeam from the World Cycling Association . In addition, the UCI Continental Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka has been in existence since 2016 .

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone became the name sponsor for the 2020 season . At the beginning of the season it was announced that the Virtu Cycling Group , which operated the Virtu Cycling team from 2016 to 2018 , had acquired a third of the shares in team operator Ryder Cycling from General Manager Douglas Ryder . The 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis , one of the shareholders of the Virtu Cycling Group , became the new team manager.

2020 season

Success in the UCI WorldTour

date	run	driver
January 25th	5th stage Tour Down Under	Giacomo Nizzolo
9th March	2nd stage Paris-Nice	Giacomo Nizzolo

Success in the UCI ProSeries

date	run	driver
February 9	3rd stage Tour de Langkawi	Max Walscheid
14th of February	8th stage Tour de Langkawi	Max Walscheid

Success in the UCI Continental Circuits

date	run	Cat.	driver
February 8	4th stage of the Étoile de Bessèges	2.1	Ben O'Connor

National road cycling champions

date	run	driver
February 9	South African Championship - Road Race	Ryan Gibbons
August 23	Italian Championship - Road Racing	Giacomo Nizzolo

team

Team roster
Surname	Date of birth	country	Previous team
Carlos Barbero	April 29, 1991	Spain	Movistar (2019)
Samuele Battistella	November 14, 1998	Italy	Dimension Data for Qhubeka (2019)
Edvald Boasson Hagen	May 17, 1987	Norway	Sky (2014)
Victor Campenaerts	October 28, 1991	Belgium	Lotto-Soudal (2019)
Stefan de Bod	November 17, 1996	South Africa	Dimension Data for Qhubeka (2018)
Nicholas Dlamini	August 12, 1995	South Africa	Dimension Data for Qhubeka (2017)
Benjamin Dyball	April 20, 1989	Australia	Team Sapura Cycling (2019)
Enrico Gasparotto	March 22, 1982	Switzerland	Bahrain-Merida (2018)
Amanuel Gebreigzab here	17th August 1994	Eritrea
Ryan Gibbons	August 13, 1994	South Africa	Dimension Data for Qhubeka (2016)
Michael Gogl	4th November 1993	Austria	Trek-Segafredo (2019)
Shotaro Iribe	August 1, 1989	Japan	Shimano Racing Team (2019)
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg	3rd February 1989	South Africa	Giant-Shimano (2014)
Ben King	March 22, 1989	United States	Cannondale-Drapac (2016)
Roman Kreuziger	May 6, 1986	Czech Republic	Mitchelton-Scott (2018)
Gino Mäder	4th January 1997	Switzerland	IAM Excelsior (2018)
Louis Meintjes	February 21, 1992	South Africa	UAE Team Emirates (2017)
Giacomo Nizzolo	January 30, 1989	Italy	Trek-Segafredo (2018)
Ben O'Connor	November 25, 1995	Australia	Avanti IsoWhey Sports (2016)
Matteo Sobrero	May 14, 1997	Italy	Dimension Data for Qhubeka (2019)
Andreas Stokbro	4th August 1997	Denmark	Riwal Readynez (2019)
Dylan Sunderland	February 26, 1996	Australia	BridgeLane (2019)
Jay Robert Thomson	April 12, 1986	South Africa	United Healthcare (2012)
Rasmus Fossum Tiller	July 28, 1996	Norway	Joker Icopal (2018)
Michael Valgren	February 7, 1992	Denmark	Astana (2018)
Max Walscheid	June 13, 1993	Germany	Sunweb (2019)
Danilo Wyss	August 26, 1985	Switzerland	BMC Racing Team (2018)
Domenico Pozzovivo	November 30, 1982	Italy	Bahrain-Merida (2019)
Michael Carbel Svendgaard	February 7, 1995	Denmark	Waoo (2019)
Source: UCI

Placements in UCI rankings

UCI Africa Tour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2008	1.	Nicholas White (1st)
2009	2.	Jay Robert Thomson (4th)
2010	1.	Ian McLeod (2nd)
2011	4th	Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (13th)
2012	1.	Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (3rd)
2013	1.	Jay Robert Thomson (7th)
2014	1.	Louis Meintjes (7.)
2015	3.	Louis Meintjes (16.)

UCI America Tour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2008 - 2012	-	-
2013	36.	Kristian Sbaragli (293.)
2014	-	-
2015	17th	Natnael Berhane (88.)

UCI Asia Tour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2008	52.	Ian McLeod (207.)
2009	15th	Christoff van Heerden (17th)
2010	52.	Jacobus Venter (268.)
2011	32.	Dennis van Niekerk (82nd)
2012	25th	Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (22.)
2013	16.	Tsgabu Grmay (27.)
2014	17th	Merhawi kudu (39.)
2015	16.	Youcef Reguigui (10th)

UCI Europe Tour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2008	117.	Kevin Evans (1077.)
2009 - 2011	-	-
2012	39.	Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (10th)
2013	21st	Gerald Ciolek (10.)
2014	27.	Kristian Sbaragli (57.)
2015	11.	Edvald Boasson Hagen (4th)

UCI Oceania Tour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2008 - 2011	-	-
2012	6th	Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (7th)
2013 - 2014	-	-
2015	9.	Tyler Farrar (26.)

UCI WorldTour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2016	18th	Mark Cavendish (67.)
2017	18th	Nathan Haas (50.)
2018	18th	Edvald Boasson Hagen (76.)

UCI World Ranking

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2019	22nd	Michael Valgren (80th)

Web links

• Official website
• NTT Pro Cycling Team in the ProCyclingStats.com database
• NTT Pro Cycling Team in the UCI database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cyclingnews.com from September 16, 2012: MTN-Qhubeka to become Africa's first Pro Continental team
2. ↑ radsport-news.com from December 6, 2012: MTN-Qhubeka dreams of the tour and the Giro
3. ↑ radsport-news.com of March 17th, 2013: Ciolek wins 14th Milan – Sanremo
4. ^ Team MTN-Qhubeka to make Vuelta history. Super Sport, April 2, 2014, accessed March 25, 2019 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} WorldTour license for Dimension Data. radsport-news.com, November 25, 2015, accessed December 23, 2016 . 
6. ↑ Zemke: "The South Africans identify with the team". radsport-news.com, November 21, 2011, accessed December 26, 2015 . 
7. ↑ Dimension Data For Qhubeka 2016. In: radsport-news.com. Retrieved November 17, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Dimension Data for Qhubeka 2017. In: radsport-news.com. Retrieved November 17, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Riis becomes the new team manager at NTT Pro Cycling. In: radsport-news.com. January 8, 2010, accessed January 8, 2020 .