'It requires meticulous management' – How Intermarché-Wanty keep competing on the smallest budget in the WorldTour

MONTREAL QUEBEC SEPTEMBER 15 Biniam Girmay of Eritrea Francesco Busatto of Italy Alexy Faure Prost of France Lorenzo Rota of Italy Dion Smith of New Zealand Roel Van Sintmaartensdijk of The Netherlands Georg Zimmermann of Germany and Team Intermarche Wanty prior to the 13th Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal 2024 a 2091km one day race from Montreal to Montreal UCIWT on September 15 2024 in Montreal Quebec Photo by Alex BroadwayGetty Images.

Intermarché-Wanty performance manager Aike Visbeek shed light on the realities of life as the team with the smallest budget in the WorldTour, with the Belgian team's €14 million budget counting for less than a third of the division's richest squad UAE Team Emirates.

The Belgian called the first half of the 2024 season "perhaps the most difficult" in terms of keeping the team – which includes the WorldTour squad, the U23 development team, and a cyclocross operation – running smoothly. He also noted that Intermarché stepped up sponsorship as the team will lose key sponsor Circus due to the upcoming Belgian ban on gambling advertising.