August 28, 2009 – While not officially released yet current U23 Road Champ Guillaume Boivin (VW Specialized) has announced on his website that he’ll be racing at the Tour of Missouri from Sept 7-13 with Planet Energy as a stagiaire. Boivin has made headlines this season stealing the show at the 2009 Road Nationals as he crossed the finish line first over a stacked field. Then he broke Dominique Rollin’s (Cervelo TestTeam) record time in the 50km race at the Mardis Cyclistes winning the finale on August 11 over overall series winner Martin Gilbert (Planet Energy).

“It is a dream for me to ride with Planet Energy with the legendary Steve Bauer as my coach, and to race against ProTour teams such as Astana, Columbia-HTC, Cervelo Test Team, Garmin-Slipstream, Liquigas, Quickstep et Saxo Bank,” writes Boivin in French on his website. He also describes the chance to ride with Éric Boily, Martin Gilbert, Kevin Lacombe, Bruno Langlois, François Parisien, Ryan Roth and Andrew Randell as “super.” – click here.

We reached former VW-Specialized coach, Josee Robitaille, who started a new job this month as Road, Track and Paracycling Co-ordinator with the FQSC. “The fact that Guillaume will be racing Tour of Missouri with Planet Energy is a good thing. He’ll also race Binghamton that weekend with them. I’m really happy for Guillaume –he’ll fit perfectly with the rest of the team.”

“It’s also kind of great for our program to know that six former VW riders (Boily, Boivin, Gilbert, Lacombe, Langlois, and Parisien) will be at Tour of Missouri.

Robitaille also promised an update soon on what is happening with her former team. No official announcement has been made for a replacement for Robitaille at VW-Specialized. The contract with title sponsor VW terminates at the end of this season. Earlier this year a report in the Journal de Quebec predicted the imminent demise of the team.