CCC team manager Jim Ochowicz, the team's main sponsor for the upcoming season, despite the loss of the team's signature athlete, Olympic road race champion Greg Van Avermaat, who will move to AG2R La Mondiale in 2021 CCC, is actively looking for a replacement.

The American manager is competing with a team made up of riders including Van Avermaert and 2018 European road race champion Matteo Trentin, whose WorldTour team competed in the Tour de France in Nice on Monday, Belgian newspaper He told Het Niewsblad that he would not rule out starting a new team below the World Tour level if necessary, but that he uses the Tour as a showcase for what he and his team can offer.

"The Tour remains a great showcase to convince sponsors. I have World Tour licenses for the next two seasons, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to start over at a lower level if necessary."

"This isn't the first time I've started a team from scratch. For example, we've already done it with 7-Eleven, which grew into Motorola, and with BMC. But the more the CCC shows [at the Tour], the more it can generate potential sponsors and enthusiasm for cycling."

The team announced in June that CCC would not continue as the main sponsor in Poland.

There was also talk that the Manuela Foundation was close to signing Ochowicz after the Spanish foundation that was supposed to take over as the main sponsor of Mitchelton-Scott broke its contract with the Australian World Tour team in June.

Ochowicz, however, gave no further hint as to whether a deal with Manuela Fundacion was still possible, but he added: "I'm not sure if it's possible.

Players like Trentin and Ilnur Zakarin are under contract with Ochowicz's Continuum Sports organization, which owns the team organization, until the end of 2021, while Michal Scheer and Gijs van Hoekke will join Van Avermaat next year in AG2R and New Zealand's Paddy Bevin will join Israel's Startup Nation, while Nathan van Hooydonk will join Jumbo Visma next season.