The team manager of Jan-Willem van Schip‘s Azérion-Villa Valkenburg squad has said that their situation is becoming “untenable” with his UCI rule breaks and disqualifications costing the Continental squad too much money.
The Dutch racer is often in the news for his regulation-breaking tech hacks rather than his results, having been disqualified three times in the last nine months.
Last October, he was thrown out of the Tour of Holland for using illegal handlebars – something he was also disqualified from races for in 2021 and 2023, while last month, he was disqualified from the Tour of Hellas for an illegal riding position.
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Last week, Van Schip was disqualified from the Ronde de L’Oise for racing with a bidon down the front of his jersey in contravention of UCI regulation 2.12.007 3.2 – ‘Use of non-compliant clothing, helmet or any other item or accessory worn by the rider’.
Now, Azérion-Villa Valkenburg manager Johan Berghmans has said that the team can’t afford to keep paying fines for Van Schip’s transgressions.
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“For us, the situation is becoming a bit untenable,” he told Sporza.
“We are just a small Continental team, you know. We are absolutely not Visma or whatever. Everywhere Jan-Willem races, it almost always costs us 1,000 Swiss Francs in fines. As a team, that is unsustainable.
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“Ultimately, we have to work with Jan-Willem. He needs to get out of that grey zone. No one benefits or becomes happier there. He needs to move to the green zone and ride a bike like any other rider, but that is very difficult with him.
“As a team manager, you want to focus on your entire team. In that stage, I ended up spending half a day dealing with one rider and the jury, and we don’t want that anymore. It costs too much money and energy, and it doesn’t pay off. You always lose to the UCI.”
It remains to be seen what the team and Van Schip will do next. The 31-year-old former Roompot pro has made the news more for his transgressions than his results, and said last month that, “I don’t really feel welcome in cycling.”
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Berghmans said that his rider is being “sought after” by UCI commissaires following his previous disqualifications, saying that “it’s not really fun as a team” to keep on going through the same processes.
“Because of all the little things piling up, he is naturally being sought after. In stage 2, we had a minor incident regarding his gears. He had to take another bike after a few kilometres,” Berghmans said.
“Our mechanics fix it, and then in stage 3, it happens again, and he has to switch bikes again. With a normal cyclist, nothing happens, but with him, his bike is thoroughly checked the next day.
“They really do look for him, and it’s really not fun as a team anymore.”
Following his latest disqualification on the fourth stage at the Ronde de L’Oise, where his team won stage 2 with Mathis Avondts, Van Schip was pictured lying by the side of the road with a police officer standing over him.
Some social media posts had intimated that the police officer had to ‘tackle’ Van Schip to force him to stop racing. That is far from the truth, however.
“The police on the motorcycle effectively took him off course. But that certainly wasn’t heavy-handed. According to Jan-Willem, the police came to ask him to stop. That might have been done in a strict manner, but I don’t know for sure. But he did do so voluntarily,” Berghmans said.
“So, just to be clear, he was not roughly pulled off his bike by the police. They just did their job. He was in shock afterwards, but that is due to his disposition. He was lying on the grass verge crying and having convulsions. Everyone was just concerned about him.”