After the Rise of Ceratizit-WNT two German women's teams will be competing in the World Tour in future. But there is also some bad news. Two of the most traditional teams, founded in 2005 and 2006, have disappeared. EF Education-TIBCO-SVB disbanded completely due to the collapse of co-sponsor Silicon Valley Bank. Liv Racing TecFind merged with the similarly unsuccessful women's division of Jayco-AlUla after a year of almost no victories.
SD Worx dominated 2023
The outstanding team last season was not the women's division of the Dutch racing team Jumbo-Visma. Although the team led by three-time world champion Marianne Vos took ten victories, that was nothing compared to the Performance of SD Worx with 62 successesMany of these were even double victories, such as in the Tour de France Femmes, the Tour of Flanders and the World Championship road race. Can this dominance be broken? "We have to be a bit smarter tactically, develop further and try to put our stamp on the race," is Ronny Lauke's recipe.
However, the Canyon//SRAM team boss does not want to focus solely on SD Worx. Firstly, because the team is in a different league financially. "Six or seven years ago, they were already the team with the highest budget. They were able to sign good riders with above-average incomes early on and have developed these already very good riders even further." On the other hand, he wants to constantly improve his own racing team, regardless of the competition. "We want to be one of the top three teams in the coming season," he says.
Thirdly, he believes that a general increase in power density in the peloton will make it harder for SD Worx to win all by itself: "As the sport develops, this dominance will gradually diminish. Others will come up, it will be tighter at the front." The rivalry within the team between stars Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering could also help. This came to the fore at the finish of the Strade Bianche. The centrifugal force that a dispute between the leaders can have was emphasised in the winter by the departure of Primoz Roglic from the Jumbo men's team.
Struggle for survival among many teams
However, most of the other teams are not even watching SD Worx. For them, it's a fight for survival. They are looking for UCI points in order to have a good chance of being awarded a licence for the 2026 season. "We're starting from scratch again in January," says Dirk Baldinger from the promoted Ceratizit-WNT team. The new licence, which provides planning security for two years but also incurs additional costs of around 400,000 euros per year, is thanks to precisely this tactical change: "We mainly raced where we had the prospect of scoring the most points. It wasn't necessarily important to take part in the Giro, you tend to ride small races."
With an even more sophisticated squirrel strategy, the Uzbek team Tashkent City Women Professional Cycling with the now 43-year-old Olga Sabelinskaya collected points, especially in moderately populated races in Asia. The reward is guaranteed participation in the Tour de France Femmes 2024.
From EF Education-TIBCO-SVB
However, the fate of one of the oldest racing teams in women's cycling shows just how quickly things can go downhill. EF Education-TIBCO-SVB had acquired its first professional licence in 2005 under the name Palo Alto Bicycle Shop. Due to the collapse of co-sponsor Silicon Valley Bank, a fairly large hub for start-up capital, the lights went out on the cycling team in autumn 2023. Not even co-sponsor EF, which also supports Jonathan Vaughters' men's team, wanted to continue founder Linda Jackson's commendable project. Instead, a completely new team at Continental level is being set up.
