Simply 4 seconds separated Kasia Niewiadoma and Canyon-SRAM from their biggest-ever victory on the Excursion de France Femmes and the obscurity of completing 2d closing August. That profitable margin, the narrowest in Excursion historical past, males’s or girls’s, no longer handiest cemented the Polish rider into biking historical past but in addition exponentially expanded the German workforce’s possible from a carrying and industry standpoint.
Since 2019, the ladies’s aspect of the game has observed dramatic expansion in professionalism, salaries, the calendar itself, and the intensity of rider high quality. Then again, the largest exchange is in all probability the addition of the Excursion de France Femmes.
Via bringing the TDF identify in a stage-race layout again into girls’s biking, unseen since 1989, it has unfolded the status of biking’s biggest race to all. With a 111-year historical past for males, the Excursion de France is considerably larger than every other match, each from a world consideration, recognition and advertising and marketing point of view, and that has rung true because the inaugural Excursion de France Femmes in 2022.
In profitable the fabled yellow jersey, Canyon-SRAM are the newest workforce to revel in what this brings, which, because the monetary calls for of girls’s biking inflate in keeping with its total expansion, is as crucial as ever.
“In anything in the business world, wherever you look, the world keeps developing. This counts for us as well as a Women’s WorldTour team because the product of the WWT, especially with the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwfit, has become a very visible marketing tool.
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Ronny Lauke pictured on the 2022 Excursion de France Femmes (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)
“Excursion de France itself, the identify, is the most powerful emblem biking can be offering and to be related to this raises a large number of passion. The firms concerned within the recreation say ‘We’ve got a girls’s workforce, we wish to shine on the Excursion, and we want the most efficient riders.’
“This raises demand on the market, and at the moment, the top-class riders are still limited. However, we have seen tremendous growth in depth and quality in the women’s field because many more women are able to focus on the sport and make it a full-time job which was not been the case even four or five years ago.”
Lauke has revel in spanning greater than 15 years running in girls’s biking, first at Crew Columbia Girls again in 2008 which has transitioned into the Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto workforce we all know as of late. Having lived thru those adjustments first-hand, he additionally believes it may not be slowing down anytime quickly.
“I think it has just started. In my opinion, we will see the attractiveness of the sport growing in the coming years because of the depth and that will create more interesting and nail-biting bike races,” stated Lauke.
“I’m looking forward to it, but it also requires additional funding because good riders have become more expensive and that’s the reason the business part of a cycling team needs to grow further.
“What we now have nowadays for the riders… coaches, medical doctors, physiotherapists, osteopaths and cooks, that is it is beautiful cool and it is the similar for all of the giant groups. However from our workforce’s standpoint, the industry aspect wishes to head additional, in order that we do not lose flooring to our competition.”
Winning the Tour de France itself didn’t specifically allow Canyon to gain another sponsor, those conversations were already ongoing, however, it certainly didn’t harm negotiations with the Zondacrypto, a regulated cryptocurrency exchange marketplace from Poland.
Lauke also confirmed that securing a three-year deal with a new sponsor wasn’t a requirement for survival but part of trying to stay ahead in the sport.
“We do not have been in hassle, we have been protected. All of our companions we had from the start have been dedicated to the workforce already lengthy earlier than the Excursion and so they wish to proceed the adventure.
“We had conversations with [Zondacrypto] already, before the Tour.
“What it did permit us is shall we upload one or two extra riders. Shall we be offering a couple of extra coaching camps to the riders and it permits us to paintings extra intimately to create an excellent higher infrastructure and higher steering for the riders during the season.”
Heading back to the Tour de France Femmes as defending champions
Niewiadoma defends the yellow jersey at the slopes of Alpe d’Huez (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)
Personnel-wise, Lauke’s team has grown in quality for 2025, by adding the likes of all-rounder Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, sprinter Chiara Consonni and Unbound Gravel champion Rosa Klöser. Alongside their key leaders Niewiadoma and Chloé Dygert, they also have developing stars in Neve Bradbury and Antonia Niedermaier.
When they head back to the Tour in its usual July slot later this season, this depth will be vital against GC favourites Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime). But buoyed by their victory, Lauke is hopeful 2024 won’t be a highlight but the start of something bigger.
“I imply intensity inside of your workforce is without a doubt useful as a result of you’ll create a tactical method this is unpredictable in opposition to your combatants,” stated Lauke.
“If one rider has a nasty day, then every other can step in, so it will give you many extra alternatives, and I am beautiful assured we can have an overly aggressive team once more on the Excursion de France Femmes subsequent 12 months.
“We’re looking forward to it and I want to say that, we won the Tour this year. We have it in our pocket. We are happy about it, and we see it as a blessing.
“But it surely does not create further drive for us. We will be able to cross to the Excursion understanding that we’ve got controlled to carry the yellow Jersey house this 12 months, and that while you arrange it one time, then why don’t you over again once more?”
After all, their champion Niewiadoma only returned to winning ways on the road after a five-year drought of near-misses by winning La Flèche Wallonne in April, which she credited after her victory at the Tour, alongside her triumph at the Gravel World Championships in 2023.
Both contributed to a freeing up of the tension of losing, finally allowing her to win again and on the biggest stage no less. Niewiadoma may not have won a stage and yes, her time gained was due to Vollering crashing on stage 5. But when the pressure came on Alpe d’Huez and she got dropped, her composure rose to the top and she got the job done.
“Profitable the Excursion does one thing to the riders. It offers them further self belief when they are on this workforce, understanding, ‘OK, shall we arrange it,'” Lauke stated.
“It offers self belief to Kasia [Niewiadoma] herself additionally that she already received it as soon as. Even though there is not any drive from the workforce, high-performance athletes at all times put drive on themselves.
“But she knows she did it once in her life, which many high-profile riders will never achieve. She has that one thing in her pocket, and another time would be good, but if it’s not to be, she still has that one and I think that also does something with your mind.”
Addressing an in-built self belief downside
Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto were given off to a flying get started in 2025 as Chloé Dygert received a degree on the Excursion Down Below (Symbol credit score: Zac Williams/SWpix)
Inspiring this profitable self belief is one thing Lauke admits is tremendous necessary for Canyon-SRAM, who’ve lengthy been one of the vital height six groups in girls’s biking however have struggled for victories.
Between 2019 and 2023, their wins dried up. Dygert getting back from lengthy spells of damage and sickness to win a degree on the RideLondon Classique ended a four-year dry spell. In 2024 they just received six races however 5 have been at WorldTour stage, alternatively, that is neatly clear of SD Worx-Protime’s 64 victories or Lidl-Trek’s 17.
With a newfound intensity, Lauke is hoping to win larger and extra incessantly, and they have got were given off to a just right get started on the Excursion Down Below with Dygert profitable a degree. However that deficit of 58 wins to the Dutch workforce is one thing they’re going to wish to consume into during the approaching 12 months.
“It is important to win more. In the end, winning bike races as a high-performance team is the essence of the professional sport,” stated the workforce boss.
“When we look at coming back to the depth of the team, in terms of rider quality, we have the possibility and ability to make changes and adjustments from two years ago when our budget grew.
“It used to be at all times the cheap factor and with the expansion of the price range, shall we rent other riders who’ve extra high quality, with out being disrespectful to someone we had earlier than, it’s essential to see the consequences have been higher – we had extra height 10s, extra podiums.”
Lauke also revealed that a lack of confidence has been a team-wide issue in recent years, with inspiring belief essential to their strategy going forward. Winning the Tour should change things, however.
“In profitable, you’ll be as robust as you need, however there are lots of sides that have to come back in combination and one among them is self belief, which we now have at all times had an issue with our riders,” he stated.
“Even if we attempt to beef up them, we attempt to inform them how just right and powerful they’re, nearly all of our riders had a self belief downside in our workforce. That is what we want to paintings arduous on to switch as a result of there is not any want for any of them to have a self belief downside.
“They are highly talented and have achieved a lot in their career. I think with these new additions, we have an even better team.
“A minimum of, in each place we’re sponsored up by means of every other robust rider. We’ve got world-class time triallists, we now have world-class climbers, we now have world-class puncheurs and we now have world-class sprinters. It is no less than two of them in every in every division and this provides us self belief that we can win extra motorbike races one day.”
