Slovenian signs with Team SmartStop
Jure Kocjan has just been with Euskaltel-Euskadi one year, but he has, as so many others riders, fallen victim to the 2013’s economic cycling plague, which have caused the demise of several teams,
Now, Kocjan can count himself lucky, because as SmartStop director Michael Creed told Cyclingnews, the Slovenian got picked up by the American Team due to Tiger Woods….
"I had deleted my Facebook account, and I wanted to play Tiger Woods Golf," Creed said. "The only way I could play Tiger Woods Golf was to reactivate my Facebook account. When I went to do that, I had a few leftover messages there. One was from Jure."
"To be honest, we were more or less done signing riders, but we scrounged together what we had and gave him the offer," Creed said. "He's a rider who deserves to be taken care of financially, and hopefully we can get him back to that place. He can help us become a bigger team – or a more legitimate team in people's eyes – and we can provide him the opportunity to get back to the WorldTour, where he clearly deserves to be."
While not stellar Jure Kocjan still has a decent record. He has collected seven UCI wins since 2008; most recently two in the Tour du Limousin in 2012.
"He's been second overall at Etoile de Besseges and he's won Pino Cerami twice," Creed said. "If you don't know Pino Cerami – it's one of those races that a lot of people don't know unless you've been to Europe – but that's a legit result. Sixth overall at Limousin and stage wins at Limousin, yeah, the guy's the real deal."
Good luck to Kocjan, and perhaps also to Team SmartStop. The Slovenian rider is the team’s thirteenth announced signing, and SmartStop thus continues to focus on gaining entry to North America’s most important stage races.
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