When the 23-year-old Cédrine Kerbaol crosses the finish line in Morteau on the sixth stage of this year's Tour de France FemmesThe Frenchwoman from the Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling team is leaving her mark on the history of international women's cycling in more ways than one: she is the first Frenchwoman to win a stage in the Women's Tour, which was relaunched in 2022, and at the same time the protagonist who finally manoeuvred the Kempten-based team into the limelight.
Team Ceratizit: Small steps at the beginning
"When the amateur women's cycling team WNT was founded ten years ago, we couldn't have imagined such success on the big stage," says Dirk Baldinger looking back. The ex-professional is both the owner and sports director of Ceratizit-WNT and has been responsible for all sporting and structural matters since 2018. "In the early days, the team was registered in the UK, consisted of four to five British riders and only competed in criterium series and smaller races on the island," says Baldinger, describing the team's first steps.
However, the managing director of the then sponsor WNT, Claude Sun, quickly wanted more, and so in 2017 a team was registered with the UCI under the name WNT Pro Cycling, which is now ranked tenth in the world. Sun, currently team manager, realised that additional expertise was needed in sports management to achieve ambitious goals. Dirk Baldinger, sports director at Team Cervélo-Bigla in 2016 and 2017, seemed to be the right person for this position.
And it was Jens Zemke, Sports Director at Bora-Hansgrohe at the time, who finally brought the two men together. The result was a duo that continues to steer the team's fortunes extremely successfully to this day. Subsequently, the team was filled with more and more international athletes, as the team needed UCI ranking points to get closer to the top of the world rankings.
Successful female riders join Team Ceratizit
A lucky coincidence: Lisa Brennauer, world time trial champion in 2014, was looking for a new professional home and sporting challenge for the 2019 season after the dissolution of Team Wiggle High5. She ended her career in 2022, but is still the team's most successful rider with twelve victories to date. "I had contact with Dirk's team from time to time and knew about the familiar yet professional atmosphere there. Being able to help shape and develop something in what was then an up-and-coming team also appealed to me enormously. The local proximity - me being born in Kempten and the team being based in the same city - accelerated things even more," describes the Olympic track champion from 2021 her decision to join the team at the time.
She was joined by other names such as multiple track world champion Kirsten Wild, and the "collecting points" project continued to gather pace. In the year of the coronavirus pandemic, the Luxembourg-based Ceratizit Group decided to support the team as a name sponsor. "This was mainly influenced by the integration of our subsidiary WNT into the Ceratizit Group," explains Michael Bank, Marketing Director of the precision tool company.
"It was a logical step for us. No other sport reflects our corporate values better than cycling: teamwork, fighting spirit, creativity and long-term thinking." He sees women's cycling as having a clear advantage over men's cycling in terms of advertising effectiveness. "Cycling generally has the best return on investment for advertising in sport, and women are ahead in this respect due to the rapid development in recent years."
Partnership at eye level
Young track talents also regularly benefit from this "thinking outside the box", as Michael Blank calls it. A striking number of successful female track cyclists can be found in the Allgäu squad time and again. Whether Lea Lin Teutenberg, Lana Eberle or Franziska Brauße, they all made the leap to their first professional contract thanks to their success on the wooden oval. "Our sponsor uses track competitions specifically for customer events and scouts young female riders," explains Brauße.
"I was approached directly by Claude Sun at one of these events. The women are given the opportunity to train on both road and track. Other teams in the World Tour are not so relaxed about this," says the all-rounder, who celebrated her second professional victory on the road this season in Gatineau, Canada.
Ceratizit must be internationally positioned
Nevertheless, according to the team management, sponsor interests have top priority when putting together the squad. With company locations in 30 countries, the team has to be international. "We also need something from everyone in terms of sport to be able to collect UCI points," says Baldinger. And in the coaching staff: Marcello Albasini has been recruited as Performance Director for scientific support for the coming season. The former sporting director of IAM Cycling and Swiss national coach brings a wealth of experience with him.
Although the team is not yet able to keep up with the big teams in terms of aerodynamic testing, Baldinger says that they hope the signing of the 67-year-old from Thurgau will be another step forward. The Ceratizit-WNT team achieved an impressive 20 victories in its first season as a World Team. "That's five more victories than in our most successful year to date," says Baldinger with obvious pride. Next season, the team wants to start collecting victories even earlier and is therefore planning to take part in the Australian races for the first time. The women from Kempten want to be ready to make their mark in the spring classics and grand tours.
