The signing of Mark Cavendish has led to the loss of a sponsor at Astana Qazaqstan, with eyewear supplier Scicon pulling out after the British sprinter brought Oakley with him as a personal sponsor.
Cyclingnews understands the sponsor conflict led to tensions during Cavendish’s contract negotiations with the Kazakh team, and now to the termination of Scicon’s contract with the team.
Cavendish is no longer the only Astana rider wearing Oakleys, with various others swapping away from Scicon.
Cyclingnews has approached both Scicon and Astana Qazaqstan for comment, without a response as yet.
Cavendish has a long-standing relationship with Oakley and declined to give up on it as part of his move to Astana late last year. After being pictured without glasses in the first photos issued by his new team, the 34-time Tour de France stage winner wore a pair of gold Oakley Katos in his first race of the season, the Muscat Classic.
At the time, his teammates were all wearing Scicon shades. However, many of them are now wearing Oakleys.
It appears that Alexey Lutsenko was the first to make the switch at the UAE Tour in late February. His teammates there were all wearing Scicon but in the March races many more have followed suit; at least 10 Astana riders have been pictured in Oakleys at the likes of Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, and Milan-San Remo.
At the same time, Scicon’s logo has disappeared from the ‘partners’ section of Astana Qazaqtan’s website.
Oakley has not replaced Scicon as a team sponsor. Instead, the riders now appear to have personal choice of what they wear, free from sponsor obligations, and most have plumped for the US brand.
However, Fabio Felline was spotted at the Volta a Catalunya in a pair of Matras from Alba Optics, a brand the Italian wore previously at Astana before they brought in Scicon as eyewear sponsor in 2022.
Some riders also appear to be sticking by Scicon, with Cees Bol, Joe Dombrowski, Gleb Syritsa, Vladim Pronskiy, Dmitriy Gruzdev and Yevgeniy Fedorov all wearing Scicon at recent races.
Image 1 of 6
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…