Vogels reveals Pegasus Racing dispute
Henk Vogels makes a live call in to Australian TV coverage of the Amgen Tour of California.
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V Australia sports director still chasing wages and entitlements
Henk Vogels played a huge role in the success of the V Australia juggernaut. Under his watch the Australian continental team claimed 245 race wins. But the team’s ambitions to join the top tier of cycling came crashing down last year, taking the riders’ and staff’s careers with them.
Vogels has resisted going public with his tale of how the team’s collapse nearly ruined him on the basis that he wanted desperately to call time on this tumultuous period of his life, but now is ready for his story to be heard. It should be noted that Cyclingnews has contacted Pegasus Racing boss Chris White on numerous occasions over the past few weeks but he has not returned our calls or messages.
Still owed tens of thousands of dollars, Vogels’ likely last chance to recoup any funds from the team as part of the UCI bank guarantee vanished earlier this month when he was removed as a creditor to the claim.
On the eighth of this month, Cycling Australia released the bank guarantee from the 2011 season back to Pegasus Racing. Cycling Australia relaxed the standard March 31 deadline to release the funds on the basis that there was an on-going dispute between White and a creditor – Vogels. When Cyclingnews broke the story of Cycling Australia withholding the funds, Vogels had not wished to be named.
“I was in serious financial difficulty for a long, long time,” he told Cyclingnews. “It was only through the help of Jonathon Noonan who gave me a job with BikeSportz directly without an application and Heiko Salzwedel my old coach [now general manager of RusVelo who has employed Vogels as a sports director], I don’t think I would have got through it all.
“Chris White left me for dead.”
Vogels’ dispute with White began mid-September of
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