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Participating youth cycling teams à More than 275 riders in age categories U12 - U19 à More than 100 staff members

ITD Team

International Talent Development

VISION OF ITD TEAM • FACILITATE COLLABORATION with other clubs, riders,

collaborators and trainers active in neighbouring countries • Offer EQUAL CHANCES to all riders & UNLOCK TALENTS • PIONEER in

- personal development of riders (sportive, cultural & educational level) - exchange best practices -Fase 1: within the project -Fase 2: to other teams/organisations within or beyond cycling

A key success factor for the project is the common vision of all participating teams on development and innovation. The development of sportive and extra-sportive potential of the riders will always be at the core of our decision-making. Feed talents with new international challenges, with the aim to grow, to learn and to connect. The performance as such is only a component of the overall development of the riders. This network of like-minded youth clubs in various countries will all contribute to realize this mission through:

- a state-of-the-art youth education program - a vision beyond results - a willingness to contribute resources to this project -

Number of riders per age category (2018)

U12 men

U12 women

U15 men

U15 women

U17 men

U17 women

U19 men

U19 women TOTAL

Belgium 24 2 28 3 26 6 22 4 115 NL 16 19 22 8 6 1 7 3 82 Lux 20 5 7 0 6 0 1 1 40 France 13 1 11 1 0 0 15 0 41 73 27 68 12 38 7 45 8 278

Number of Technical & Commission Staff (2018)

19-30 men

19-30 women

31-45 men

31-45 women

45-60 men

45-60 women

+60 men

+60 women TOTAL

Belgium 3 12 17 3 35 NL 3 2 10 5 13 2 35 Lux 1 3 6 1 4 15 France 1 1 5 1 11 1 4 24 8 3 30 6 47 4 11 0 109

INTERNATIONAL TALENT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT Small collaborative partnerships in the sport field Project number: 579728-EPP-1-2016-1-BE-SPO-SSCP

OBJECTIVES ERASMUS+ Objective 1: Create cross-border structures and collaboration models Beyond the intentions and goodwill to collaborate, we have to test what is working in reality and filter out what doesn’t work in order to focus on the key benefits. 1.1 Creation of a cross-border structure: How does such a collaboration structure look like? Before giving more details on a preferred collaboration structure, we would like to make the important remark that our different national sport federations don't really support these cross-border structures. Multi-national mixed teams are not easy to put together as multiple administration tasks have to be fulfilled before participating in any race. Examples of bureaucratic and time consuming activities include getting official permissions from national federation, local federation and organisation bodies. In each country participation rules, category naming (e.g. U9, U10, U11 and U12 in Belgium vs category 1,2,3 and 4 in The Netherlands) and technical restrictions (e.g. maximal gear ratio per category) could be different. We advise that streamlining, uniformization and naming of different categories on a European level could help simplifying the process and bringing down this entry barrier. UCI could make important steps to start an alignment process to make it easier to cross country borders and to allow cyclists to compete abroad. Next to this, we notice that federations discourage youth riders being part of foreign teams. It is for example much more expensive

to get a license from the federation when a youth rider wants to be part of a foreign team. These rules have become much more severe in Belgium and The Netherlands in the last years. For this collaboration set-up all partners have agreed to limit the legal structure of ITD Team as much as possible by renewing on a regular basis the Memorandum of Understanding. The formalization of our collaboration in a legal entity – whatever the choice – would result in heavily increased expenses that never will bring similar benefits. As local clubs know the best training infrastructure and roads in their preferred local environment a sportive and logistic collaboration is really beneficial as they facilitate other teams realizing their objectives and delivering high quality. We have seen many recommendations between our teams of youth hostels and small hotels that offered the requested quality. Also ideal circuits and road information (hills, cobbles, …) were exchanged on a regular basis to maximize the result at training camps. Information of best practices were also exchanged by some trainers in our regular joint phone calls. And the main added value came from the fact that our different partners have different areas of expertise in diverse cycling segments. For example the Merida Adelaar Development Team in track racing, Rudyco Cycling Team in Team Time Trial, UC Dippach in hill climbing and CCSVA in setting up logistics arrangements for participation in road races in a broader area such as France. So we advise to work with light legal structures and focus on sportive and logistic collaboration.

1.2 Creation of different collaboration models To support the sportive & logistic collaboration structure as described in Objective 1.1, we have been setting up some regular meetings which we intend to further increase. These meetings were not limited to full day 1-on-1 meetings in Brussels, but were further intensified by monthly Skype calls. The biggest advantage of these full day 1-on-1 meetings is the physical contact that facilitates and accelerates building trust, getting to known to each other and having deep discussions in the meetings and rather informal talks during lunch and pauses. We have organized our ITD Team meetings in Zaventem (Brussels) as central place, but still 200–250 kms driving for our foreign partners located in the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France. We recommend other teams that want to apply a cross-border collaboration model to invest in these meetings at a central place.

Advantages of the regular Skype calls are the fact it is less time consuming (no travel), it doesn’t imply travelling costs, a higher regularity/frequency and most important it allows shorter communication lines. Example of such a discussion topic in our monthly phone call: Make everyone speak the same language to avoid any confusion and misunderstanding: As the different youth categories are sometimes described differently in the countries (e.g. débutants in Luxemburg, cadets in France), we prefer to make use of age categories (e.g. U17). With trial and error we also created some templates to facilitate the report out and the key learnings to exchange. Such templates have been made for:

- Preparation document of riders: team name, full name, UCI code, date of birth, full address, contact details, ICE, race cloth sizes. Rudyco CT used this information to further enrich the data it has gathered on its own riders. This is done in a digital way, so that also mechanics and coaches can access technical information. The rider always has the final decision of what to share, fully in line with GDPR regulation.

- (Joint) Training camps: key data, summary of experiences, highlights, lowlights and main lessons learned.

- Joint race preparation document: containing information of event, place of gathering, briefing, details of race, riders and support team from each team with detailed info (such as size of jersey and pants), administration responsibles (submission, permissions, special documents), details of service course, price/cost section, other remarks.

- Joint race report out: next to some important race information and results, also a summary, highlights an lowlights section.

- Checklist for cycling events.

We also have been exchanging videos (via Youtube or Wetransfer) from our participating teams in order to exchange best practices regarding training exercises.

Such a medium brings again a time advantage as trainers should not spend much time in writing down a roadbook and making complicated graphs and time scenarios. A short movie – made by a smartphone, so no investment cost – gives a comprehensive understanding of the set-up and purpose of the training activity, together with the expected outcome. TEAM MEETINGS

Rudcyo CT Merida Adelaar DT UC Dippach CCSVA

October 7, 2015 Luc Rooms Martine Grefte - Dider Chatelin Lokeren (B) Vincent Verniers Marcel Kranenburg Biznis hotel Bart Van Hoof Freddy Moortgat November 17, 2015 Bart Van Hoof Lucien Didier Dippach (Lux) Vincent Verniers Henri Jungels Local restaurant December 17, 2016 Luc Rooms André Leerkens Henri Jungels Dider Chatelin Zaventem (B) Vincent Verniers Guido Willemsen Lucien Didier Jim Corcy Van de Valk hotel Freddy Moortgat Laurence Seyler Sven Blommaert Bart Van Hoof February 4, 2017 Luc Rooms Martin Grefte Henri Jungels Didier Chatelin Zaventem (B) Vincent Verniers Manuel Hezeman Bob Simon Ludovic Van de Valk hotel Freddy Moortgat Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Bart Van Hoof February 17, 2018 Vincent Verniers Manuel Hezeman Laurence Seyler Didier Chatelin

Zaventem (B) Bart Van Hoof Guido Willemsen Dan Heiderscheid Ludovic

Van de Valk hotel CALLS May 18, 2017 Vincent Verniers Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Didier Chatelin Bart Van Hoof January 11, 2018 Vincent Verniers Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Didier Chatelin Bart Van Hoof April 4, 2018 Vincent Verniers Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Didier Chatelin Bart Van Hoof Dan Heiderscheid October 10, 2018 Vincent Verniers Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Didier Chatelin Christophe Kimpe Dan Heiderscheid Bart Van Hoof November 7, 2018 Bart Van Hoof Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Didier Chatelin Dan Heiderscheid December 5, 2018 Vincent Verniers Guido Willemsen Laurence Seyler Bart Van Hoof Dan Heiderscheid

Objective 2: Field-test implementation through joint projects and mixed participation to youth races 2.1. Organise knowledge exchange on club management How can we organise our clubs, maximize participation of young riders in clubs and develop their talents in a cross-border environment. One of the big advantages of this international collaboration is that our teams are informing and advising at first hand the other partners located in different countries. Whenever any cycling rule or directive is changing in our home country, we bring this topic on our monthly agenda. We see a similar information exchange between the partners when the first national race calendars are published. Even when not official, this kind of details help to build a balanced calendar for our young riders over the different categories. Clearly an advantage that we can offer to our young cyclists (and their parents), to be used in their benefit. And we could make use of each other network to establish contacts and making connection with local, regional and country federations to get a selection. This network is critical for success as more and more the number of teams selected per race are coming down to limit the total number of participants in one race for safety reasons. In Belgium for example we see a limit in the number of race participants to 125 riders for category U17 and 150 riders for category U19. Furthermore our teams are making use of the existing team networks to get introduced and selected for important international races. This regular knowledge exchange allows all partners to discuss any practice that is introduced in one team with the potential to be rolled out to other teams once successful.

A big success was the implementation of the cycling training programme for starting riders from Rudyco CT at Merida Adelaar DT. The latter also have started organizing 4 welcome vents a year in which starters get the opportunity to participate at 4 introduction training sessions. On average 5 newcomers per event of which 60% finally stay in the team, so about 3 young riders. By applying this best practice, the number of riders at Merida Adelaar DT have grown with 25% over the last two years. Another successful implementation concerned the introduction of a separate budget and year planning for each category, originally introduced by Merida Adelaar DT. The Belgian member Rudyco CT have started applying this principle as from September 2018 to have a more transparent and responsible way of working. UC Dippach made some clear recommendations for smaller cycling teams, such as for our French partner CCSVA:

- focus on limited number of activities - when riders are also located in a broad geographical area,

you should make clear choices when deciding on training camps, joint races, …

- optimize your collaboration with national cycling association

Other creative ideas that have been implemented: - As from season 2018 our Dutch ITD Team partner Merida Adelaar DT has carved out the training staff from all categories so they are not part anymore of any category. They located their trainers in a different and unique silo as supportive function for the different categories. This type of organization helps the categories to optimize the use of informed and trained staff, easier and faster exchange of best practices ang helpt to draft a better master plan for technical development. These specialized trainers can focus on disciplines (track / road / field) rather than age categories. Merida Adelaar DT also set up a separate silo for staff and administration. - Rudyco CT have split their category U19 in a top sports team and a competition team to specifically serve the needs and expectations of riders and staff. This type of organization allows the club to give intensive focus and full package of support to a limited number of riders (from top sports team) that really want to invest in their sport

bringing their efforts to another – higher - level. It also allows the riders of the competition team to exercise cycling as a pure hobby, without having the stress of the other riders who want to obtain top levels.

2.2. Test joint training camps: Organise knowledge exchange among trainers, coaches, collaborators and riders. Create links between riders (networking). All ITD Team partners agreed to open up their training camps for other teams. However we see a big hurdle for setting up any joint training camps: the different (school) holiday periods over the different European countries that are not overlapping. Many holidays in different countries are not identical. We have a strong believe that the solution to overcome this problem is the organization of mini training camps which are much easier to set up. These training camps are limited in time (for example 2-3 days) and offer the opportunity to many youngsters to serve their specific training needs in a well described discipline (track or cross trainings, climbing stages, …). We could consider below advantages:

- service course: give technical support is saving costs for participating teams as they don’t need to bring multiple team cars.

- road information. Ride on the nicest roads, discover places which would never be detected as a foreign team.

- exchange of specific knowledge or expertise between trainers - Building international friendships: we see already young riders

making connections on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat after any joint activity. The staff of the different ITD teams are motivating our young people to do more as it’s a good learning.

- language learning: As we are working with youngsters all teams preferentially apply their native language. As such training camps are organized for bigger groups, the presentations and briefings should ideally given in the English language, followed by a second briefing in smaller groups in the native language by the trainer.

- Multi culture exchange.

- Building international friendships

2017

CATEGORY DATE ACTIVITY PLACE PARTICIPATING TEAMS

U19 16-19 Feb Training camp France CCSVA UC Dippach

U17 12-16 April Road cycling (hills) Luxemburg Rudyco CT

Ladies UC Dippach U15 3-4 June Track development Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT U17 UC Dippach U15 4-6 Oct Track development Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT Rudyco CT UC Dippach U12 20-22 Oct Track development Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT U17 m / w Rudyco CT U19 U17 3-5 Nov Track development Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT U19 Rudyco CT

2018

CATEGORY DATE NAME PLACE PARTICIPATING TEAMS

U19 8-17 Feb Training camp France CCSVA UC Dippach U17 10-17 Feb Training camp Spain Rudyco CT U19 Merida Adelaar DT U19 24 Feb Training camp France CCSVA UC Dippach U15 5 Aug Climb stage France UC Dippach U17 Rudyco CT U15 m / w 5-7 Oct Track development Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT U17 m / w Rudcyo CT For the future we started already discussing below program of mini camps based on the main expertise of our ITD teams: - Track racing weekends (Merida Adelaar DT) - 4-days training camp in area of Tour de Flanders for U12 and

U15 riders. This mini camp on the cobbles and the typical small hills will be opened for other ITD teams to practice and to educate youngsters on the rich cycling history of this Flemish region, including cycling museum visit and participation of some winners (Rudyco CT)

2.3. Test and optimize joint participation to international races to maximize talent development of the riders of the different partners. Search for economies of scale and test the collaboration models as outlined in Objective 1. A joint participation in races helps exchanging best practices among the riders and their staff. In order to increase its effectiveness we even suggest that all participating teams are sleeping in a common hotel as this helps to build up interaction and to support each other. This kind of joint activities also brings down costs of travelling to Brussels (Zaventem) for our joint ITD Team meetings. As key learning from 2017 – in many cases we advised each other in a too late stadium that year – we organized for 2018 a common calendar. This calendar – in fact an Excel sheet where all important international races for different youth categories (U15, U17, U19, Women) are listed with the request for our ITD Team partners to indicate the races where they will participate - facilitated and improved joint participation in races. This final list made upfront communication easier between team leaders and trainers from participating teams and allowed them to set up common activities to better understand any common opportunities and to gather as one organization for hotel booking, service course, F&B, technical support, … Even when not forming a mixed team with riders/participants of different ITD Team partners (unfortunately not always allowed by the national federations or local organizers), but participating with a limited selection of own team riders, we have been helping each other with technical assistance (in case of damaged bicycles), language issues (e.g. translation of team leader briefings in French language for our Dutch partner Merida Adelaar DT). The submission of the Erasmus+ funds have helped our partners to give all youngsters the opportunity to participate in at least one international race, in order to exclude any discrimination because of ‘higher’ travelling costs. Whenever appropriate these funds were used to support bringing down the costs of participation.

As key learning from a joint participation to international races we can advise other teams that we see an increased interaction when groups are smaller and grouped by age. The only drawback here is that the use of ‘mixed teams’ is more limited than before. More and more club, regional or national teams participate to more races. Typically they are chosen above a mixed team. We anticipated this trend by participating with our own team riders to joint races (see above), and we will concentrate mixed teams participations to races where there is lower interest from club teams.

2017

CATEGORY DATE NAME PLACE PARTICIPATING TEAMS

U19 02 April GP Bob Jungels Luxemburg UC Dippach Rudcyo CT Merida Adelaar DT CCSVA U19 17 April Ronde van Gelderland Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT Rudyco CT

U17 29-30 April La Basse Meuse Belgium UC Dippach Merida Adelaar DT Rudyco CT U19 29-30 April Ster Vlaamse Ardennen Belgium Rudyco CT CCSVA

U19 29-30 April Tour des Portes dus pays d'Othe France Rudyco CT

CCSVA U19 19-21 May Ronde van Axel Netherlands Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT U17 20-21 May TMP Jugendtour Germany Rudyco CT UC Dippach U12 28 May Mini Paris Roubaix France Rudyco CT UC Dippach U15 28 May Mini Paris Roubaix France Rudyco CT UC Dippach U15 28 July Berlin Kids Tour Germany UC Dippach Rudyco CT U19 28-30 July Int. Niedersachsen Rundfahrt Germany Rudyco CT CCSVA U19 18-20 Aug Ster van de Vlaamse Ardennen Belgium Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT U17 1-2 Sept Critérium Eu des Jeunes Luxembourg UC Dippach Merida Adelaar DT U17 10 Sep La Bercycle France CCSVA Rudyco CT UC Dippach U19 10 Sep La Bercycle France CCSVA Rudyco CT U15 w 20-22 Oct Tack Apeldoorn Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT 28 Oct Rudyco CT U17 30 Dec Slekkencross Belgium Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT

2018

CATEGORY DATE NAME PLACE PARTICIPATING TEAMS

U19 16-18 March Local race France CCSVA

UC Dippach U17 30 March Tour de Himmelfart Denmark Merida Adelaar DT Rudyco CT U19 30 M-2 April Ster van Zuid-Limburg Belgium Rudyco CT CCSVA U19 31 March GP Bob Jungels Luxemburg UC Dippach Merida Adelaar DT Rudyco CT CCSVA U17 w 6-9 April Youth Tour of Scotland UK Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT U17 28 April Wim Hendricks Trofee Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT UC Dippach Rudyco CT U17 28-29 April La Basse Meuse Belgium UC Dippach Merida Adelaar DT Rudyco CT

U19 28-29 April Tour des Portes dus pays d'Othe France Rudyco CT

CCSVA U19 18-20 May 3-daagse van Axel Netherlands Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT U19 21-23 May Ster Vlaamse Ardennen Belgium Rudyco CT CCSVA U12 27 May Mini Paris Roubaix France Rudyco CT UC Dippach Merida Adelaar DT U15 27 May Mini Paris Roubaix France Rudyco CT UC Dippach Merida Adelaar DT U15 27-29 July Antwerp Cycling Tour Belgium Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT

U17 11-12 August Triptique Ardennais Belgium Rudyco CT

UC Dippach

Merida Adelaar DT

U17 31 Aug-2 Sep Critérium Eu des Jeunes Luxembourg UC Dippach

Merida Adelaar DT U17 9 Sep La Bercycle France CCSVA Rudyco CT UC Dippach U19 9 Sep La Bercycle France CCSVA Rudyco CT U15 15 Sep Bavelse Berg Classic Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT Rudcyo CT U19 16 Sep Keizer der Junioren Belgium Rudyco CT CCSVA U17 w 14 Oct Track Apeldoorn Netherlands Merida Adelaar DT 17-18 Nov Rudyco CT 16 Dec U17 30 Dec Slekkencross Belgium Rudyco CT Merida Adelaar DT

Objective 3: Create scale by promoting our best practices on structures and races 3.1. Share best practices on ITD Project to other clubs, federations, interested parties. All ITD Team partners have been actively promoting the key learnings and collaboration models of this international cross border collaboration at multiple events. These events were not limited to team presentations in January of 2017 and 2018 (for all ITD Team partners), but also business events for sponsors and prospects or press conferences in local and regional newspapers. We also have shared and will continue sharing all opportunities that Erasmus+ have brought to us. By exchanging our best practices and collaboration model, we can help advance at higher speed other cycling teams to make optimal advantage of any international cross border collaboration. We also hope that this inspires teams from other sports to learn from our set-up and model. Many talk about connecting with foreign cycling teams, but just don’t dare to take the next step. However as we see the number of races declining in all countries, the regional regulations becoming more stringent and the local selection criteria only increasing, we strongly believe that such an international structure and exchange is critical for success; success for the team, the club and most importantly the young riders. Summarized all teams have been actively promoting and sharing our collaboration model and our best practices to a bigger audience in multiple events (network meetings, fairs, guest speaker acts at national cycling association, … ). Attached we have included two Powerpoint presentations (longer & shorter version) that were shared during these events. Our commitment to present the outcome at least two times to relevant stakeholders is achieved. In fact we have exceeded this objective.

Events list: Rudyco CT: - Yearly team presentations (3rd Friday of January) - Business network event (Lokeren, June 13th, 2017): explanation to 70 stakeholders about our international mission & vision and how Erasmus+ program have contributed to realize our ambitions. - Velofolies (Kortrijk, Jan 20, 2019) Presentation of outcome Erasmus+ objectives on main stage of Velofollies – the biggest cycling fair of Benelux and North of France)

- We have submitted our candidature to share our expertise on the ‘Belgian day of the sports club’, a major event where responsibles from clubs across all sports participate. To date we did not yet receive any final confirmation of participation. - Erasmus+ logo on jersey which creates interest from other sporters and teams (based on the number of questions we are receiving) Merida Adelaar DT: - Apeldoorn in Business’ network event (Apeldoorn Omnisport, March 28, 2017): presentation Erasmus+ objectives in front of 60 people during network event for business people

- Grand Depart Giro (Apeldoorn, March 9th, 2018): presentation for 180 people of all activities of Merida Adelaar DT (inclusive ITD project and Erasmus+ objectives) at the start of the Giro - Interview ‘Krant van Apeldoorn’ (June 2018): interview with Guido Willemsen about youth team and collaboration in ITD concept. 35000 copies were distributed in environment of Apeldoorn. - A similar presentation as on Velofollies and press release will be given by Merida Adelaar DT at the end of March 2019 in collaboration with the Dutch Cycling Federation. - regular updates on website and Facebook (608 followers) - Erasmus+ logo on jersey – same traction as for Rudyco CT. UC Dippach: - Interview in local press ‘Luremburger Wort’ (Lux, Feb 16, 2017): special report about the ITD Team project https://www.ucdippach.lu/press-article/cyclisme-l-uc-dippach-se-lance-dans-l-aventure-de-l-itd-17532/ - Report on national television RTL (March 7, 2017): report of participation of UC Dippach at training camp organized by Merida Adelaar DT with reference to ITD Team (highlighting the advantages of international collaboration).

3.2. Organise a ‘EU Youth Cycling Series’ competition, with races in at least 3 of the participating countries to stimulate young talents to participate to international races. Facilitate logistics and make the competition attractive to riders. Organise the races as individual races to reduce barriers for participation and maximize equal chances for participation. As in 2017 we continued in 2018 with the organization of individual races under the umbrella of “EU youth cycling series” to give young riders the opportunity to participate in different countries by facilitating logistics and offering ‘cheaper’ participation costs for travelling, hotel accommodation and technical support. We welcomed a big variety of young riders at these races differing in ages, origin, specialisation (road races, track races & field races), objectives, … but having fun and dedication to practice their loved sport cycling. Still we have the ambition as ITD Team to further expand this ‘EU youth cycling series’. A limited but focused staff representing our ITD teams probably will bring this ambition into practice in 2020 as a result of the key learnings achieved in the last couple of years. The plan is to expand the Future Series (track events) for U15 to Amsterdam (NL), Ghent (B) and Roubaix (F) on top of Apeldoorn (NL). We concisely summarized our main recommendations: - start early with the preparation round, in fact already the latest in

September of the year before (key learning) - advice to start with one category (e.g. U19). Once successful,

then you can expand and combine with other categories to attract a bigger audience

- need to be open races, not obliged to participate as a team, neither to participate in all international races

- make optimal use of relations and roll models to promote such series . As ITD team we will make optimal use of our ‘godfathers’ (e.g. Greg Van Avermaet for Rudyco CT, Bob Jungels for UC Dippach, Rudy Barbier/John Cadray for CCSVA, Hans van Bon for Merida De Adelaar DT).

2017 DATE NAME PLACE 02 April GP Bob Jungels Luxemburg 10 Sep La Bercycle France 30 Dec Slekkencross Belgium 2018 DATE NAME PLACE 31 March GP Bob Jungels Luxemburg 9 Sep La Bercycle France 30 Dec Slekkencross Belgium

3.3. Promote the ITD Project in general by setting up an efficient communication, including social media and a website to share learnings and promote our collaboration model We gradually build up our presence on social media. In a first phase all ITD Team partners started promoting our international collaboration model at their local website.

The second phase was also making movies of training exercises and cycling techniques for different categories. This best practice was coming from Rudyco CT, copied by other teams and very informative for whatever party that is looking for new exercises during trainings or training camps. In a third phase we initiated a Facebook page of ITD Tea where we could see that the network of followers was growing rapidly. In December 2018 the number of followers at all Facebook pages of ITD Team and its partners was very close to 5500.

These followers were giving the most attention when we published a small educative movie. Some of the movies of Rudyco CT – supported by an advertisement - reached over 20.000 people. The last phase was dedicated to the launch of a dedicated website itdteam.eu with detailed information about our vision, strategy and implementation activities, next to an introduction of all our partners and an overview of our main activities. We also used this medium to exchange our learnings and collaboration models with a bigger community of persons and teams that want to know more about cross border collaboration.

We finally did not choose to create a Twitter account as the message we want to share is difficult to bring in a limited number of words. All selected social media, our website and the websites of all respective ITD Team partners are linked to each other to make promotion for this joint cross-border initiative. All teams could publish information and events which were shared by others on a regular basis. Important to highlight that on all – official and non-official - communication all ITD Team partners have been using consistently the Erasmus+ logo. Next to the social media we also made use of other media to promote Erasmus+, such as - Merida Adelaar DT have printed the Erasmus+ logo on their sleeves of their jackets - Rudyco CT have printed the Erasmus+ logo on their shirts. - brochure 3rd Grand Prix Bob Jungels (organized by UC Dippach) - brochure La Bercycle (organized by CCSVA) - poster Slekkencross (organized by Rudyco CT)

GENERAL CONCLUSION As a general conclusion we can summarize that Erasmus+ program has helped ITD Team financially to realize our mission and vision, but it also supported the teams in rethinking some processes of the collaboration model and accelerating best practice exchanges among the ITD Team partners. We strongly believe that such a cross border collaboration could be copied by other cycling teams (even when active in other countries than ours) and by teams from other sports disciplines.