Lövkivst was once hailed as the next great hope in grand tours and wore the maglia rosa in 2009 but his last win came at the Sachsen Tour in late July 2009.
"I feel it is time for a change. They presented a project for me, and it sounded very interesting. I'm glad to get there, and I think it will be a good team, " he told feltet.dk.
He was looking for new opportunities and better chances to ride for himself at Sky, even expecting to be the team's captain at the 2010 Tour de France. but that honour went to Bradley Wiggins – an omen of things to come – and instead of leading the team, he found himself riding for such riders as Wiggins, Froome, Boasson Hagen and Cavendish over the years. He was in fact not nominated to ride the Tour in 2011 or 2012.
“I will have a free role and I think it will be a good opportunity for me. I still have the ambition to win one-week races such as the Tour of Romandie or the Tour de Suisse. That is definitely one of my big goals.”
Those two race are on his calendar for the coming year, and it seems a safe assumption that a Swiss Professional Continental team will be invited to the two major Swiss races. But the rest of his programme is more or less dependent on which races the team will be invited to.
“It depends very much on the results early in the season. But it will be built up slowly, management is sensitive and does not make a lot of noise. The whole team's foundation is built with discretion, as they say."
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