Vos to lead new CCC Women's WorldTour team

The newly revamped CCC squad, which took over as title sponsor for Continuum Sports, currently operating as the BMC Racing Team, is set to add a UCI Women's WorldTour branch to its operations in 2019, and will be headed up by multi-time world champion and current UCI Women's WorldTour leader Marianne Vos.

Vos' current team WaowDeals confirmed it would merge with the CCC organisation on a three year deal, with an option for two further seasons.

"We are extremely happy with this development. This enables us to even further professionalise and to fulfill big sportive ambitions," team manager Eric van den Boom said in a press release.

"We get a Polish sponsor and namesake, but we keep our identity and structure which has proven to be successful in women's cycling for many years. While the roots of the team stay in fertile, Dutch soil, the team will get an international character with a mixture of top riders and upcoming talents, something which made the team great. At this moment, contract negotiations are in the final stages."

The women will race under the same name and jersey as the men's WorldTour team, which will be the eighth WorldTour operation to have both men and women's branches, along with Astana, FDJ, Lotto Soudal, Mitchelton-Scott, Movistar, Team Sunweb and the new Trek-Segafredo team for 2019.

Het Nieuwsblad reports that the team will race on Giant bicycles in 2019. The Taiwanese brand has supported Team Sunweb, which will move to Cervelo next season. BMC will supply bikes for Dimension Data, who are currently racing on Cervelo bikes.

Giant also previously supported Vos during her tenure with the Rabobank squad.

CCC's new role as title sponsor of the team was announced during the Tour de France. The team will be led by Greg Van Avermaet, with Patrick Bevin, Alessandro de Marchi, Joey Rosskopf, Michael Schar, Nathan van Hooydonck, and Francisco Ventoso staying with the team. New additions include Will Barta, Simon Geschke, Laurens ten Dam, Serge Pauwels, Jakub Mareczko, Gijs van Hoecke and Guillaume van Kiersbulck.