{"id":68839,"date":"2025-08-14T23:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/68839\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T23:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:40:09","slug":"until-his-dying-breath-arkea-bb-hotels-not-ready-to-give-up-on-survival-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/68839\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cUntil his dying breath\u201d \u2013 Arkea \u2013 B&B Hotels not ready to give up on survival yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ark\u00e9a \u2013 B&B Hotels are fighting an uphill battle to
\nsecure their future in the WorldTour, with time rapidly running out to replace
\ntwo departing title sponsors. Before this year\u2019s Tour de France, the French
\nsquad confirmed that both Arkea and B&B Hotels would not renew their
\ncontracts beyond the end of 2025, leaving the team scrambling for financial
\nlifelines. Despite Kevin Vauquelin<\/a>\u2019s promising performance at the Tour, the
\nreality is that the team\u2019s chances of staying in the sport\u2019s top tier appear
\nincreasingly slim.For riders and staff, the uncertainty has been dragging on
\nfor months. \u201cIt’s frustrating in itself that there’s so little communication,
\nbut that’s not meant as a reproach,\u201d Jenthe Biermans<\/a> told Het Nieuwsblad. \u201cIf
\nthere’s nothing, there’s obviously not much to communicate. Until his dying
\nbreath, Hubert will try to find a solution for his staff and riders, but the
\ndeadline keeps getting pushed back. Manu says: ‘Give me another week,’ ‘at the
\nend of the Tour,’ ‘at the end of the Tour de France Femmes’… The reality is
\nthat it’s now mid-August. The clock is ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lack of firm commitments has prompted several riders to
\nsecure their futures elsewhere. According to Het Nieuwsblad and cycling
\njournalist Daniel Benson, Biermans is set to join Cofidis, while Martin Tjotta
\nwill head to Uno-X. Vauquelin, the team\u2019s standout at the Tour, is reportedly
\non his way to INEOS Grenadiers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Even if the sponsorship gap could be bridged, Ark\u00e9a \u2013
\nB&B Hotels\u2019 competitive standing is another obstacle. They currently sit
\n21st in the UCI team rankings, a full 3,400 points behind the relegation
\ncut-off, a seemingly insurmountable gap to close with the limited number of
\nraces left. That deficit makes it virtually impossible for them to retain
\nWorldTour status for 2026. Dropping down to ProTeam level would significantly
\nreduce their guaranteed race invitations, making it harder to attract
\nhigh-profile riders and sponsors.<\/p>\n

August is already deep into contract season, with many
\ncompanies finalising budgets and rider transfers well underway. The departure
\nof key names like Vauquelin only compounds the difficulty of selling the
\nproject to backers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ark\u00e9a \u2013 B&B Hotels are fighting an uphill battle to secure their future in the WorldTour, with time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-68839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}