Janneke Kanis will ride with Skil-1t4i in 2012

Janneke Kanis, formerly a team-mate of Marianne Vos at Nederland Bloeit, has announced that she will ride with the new Skil-1t4i outfit in the 2012 season.

Janneke, who came 7th in the Omloop het Nieuwsblad this year and is a previous winner of the Dutch Student Games, explained on her website:

"I would like to announce that I will be riding with the new Skil-1t41 team for 2012! After three years with Nederland Bloeit, I look forward to a new environment offering new opportunities. The new team's vision and approach is very appealing to me, and I am feeling confident - this makes me happy and I'm looking forward to my first races with them. Here is the press release as published on http://1t4i.com/nieuws:

"Project 1t4i will be introducing a Women's Team and running it alongside the existing men's team in 2012, a UCI team operating as an integral part of Project 1t4i. The team will be based around Regina Bruins, Amy Pieters, Esra Tromp, Suzanne de Goede, Anne de Wildt and Linda van Rijen. Supporting them, and strengthening the team further, will be Adrie Visser (ex-HTC-Highroad) who has won five UCI events, Monique van de Ree (ex-AA-Drink) and Janneke Kanis (ex-Nederland Bloeit). Kelly Markus has also earned a contract after a strong second half to the previous season and a 9th placing in the Junior Women event at this year's World Championships in Copenhagen.

The Women's Team will be run with the same vision and share the same philosophy as the men's team. Our sponsor Skil, who last year began a two-year sponsorship deal with the Olympic Women's Team, have entered into a one year contract providing sponsorship for the new team which, as a result, will be named Skil-1t4i and which will become operative in the Spring. For 2013, a new sponsor will be found and the team will adopt a new name accordingly. The leader of the new Women's Team has been named as Sharon van Essen."

In these times when many world class female cyclists are paid less than their male counterparts - or, in some cases - not at all, television companies ignore the sport entirely causing potential sponsors to back away and commentators at the World Championships feel it's acceptable to spend the entirety of the Elite Women's Road Race complaining they're bored and generally acting like schoolboys, it's fantastic to see a strong new team being assembled (especially when the announcement is worded in such a way as to suggest the team will be around for the foreseeable future rather than merely constituting an experiment) and a sponsor already connected to the sport willing to extend their support. We wish Janneke and Skil-1t4i a successful 2012.