Just 4 seconds separated Kasia Niewiadoma and Canyon-SRAM from their biggest-ever victory on the Tour de France Femmes and the obscurity of ending second final August. That profitable margin, the narrowest in Tour historical past, males’s or girls’s, not solely cemented the Polish rider into biking historical past but in addition exponentially expanded the German workforce’s potential from a sporting and enterprise perspective.
Since 2019, the ladies’s aspect of the game has seen dramatic development in professionalism, salaries, the calendar itself, and the depth of rider high quality. However, the largest change is maybe the addition of the Tour de France Femmes.
By bringing the TDF title in a stage-race format again into girls’s biking, unseen since 1989, it has opened up the status of biking’s biggest race to all. With a 111-year historical past for males, the Tour de France is considerably larger than every other occasion, each from a world consideration, popularity and advertising and marketing standpoint, and that has rung true because the inaugural Tour de France Femmes in 2022.
In profitable the fabled yellow jersey, Canyon-SRAM are the most recent workforce to expertise what this brings, which, because the monetary calls for of girls’s biking inflate according to its general development, is as important as ever.
Cyclingnews sat down with workforce supervisor Ronny Lauke again at Canyon-SRAM’s December coaching camp in Portugal to debate all issues Tour de France Femmes, rediscovering profitable confidence and the workforce’s new title sponsor Zondacrypto.
“To hold creating is a part of our world. If you stand nonetheless, then you’re behind,” Lauke advised Cyclingnews.
“In something within the enterprise world, wherever you look, the world retains creating. This counts for us in addition to a Women’s WorldTour workforce as a result of the product of the WWT, particularly with the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwfit, has turn into a really seen advertising and marketing software.
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“Tour de France itself, the title, is the strongest model biking can provide and to be related to this raises lots of curiosity. The firms concerned within the sport say ‘We have a girls’s workforce, we wish to shine on the Tour, and we want the most effective riders.’
“This raises demand in the marketplace, and in the mean time, the top-class riders are nonetheless restricted. However, we’ve seen super development in depth and high quality within the girls’s area as a result of many extra girls are capable of concentrate on the game and make it a full-time job which was not been the case even 4 or 5 years in the past.”
Lauke has expertise spanning greater than 15 years working in girls’s biking, first at Team Columbia Women again in 2008 which has transitioned into the Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto workforce we all know right this moment. Having lived by these adjustments first-hand, he additionally believes it will not be slowing down anytime quickly.
“I believe it has simply began. In my opinion, we are going to see the attractiveness of the game rising within the coming years due to the depth and that can create extra attention-grabbing and nail-biting bike races,” mentioned Lauke.
“I’m trying ahead to it, nevertheless it additionally requires further funding as a result of good riders have turn into costlier and that is the explanation the enterprise a part of a biking workforce must develop additional.
“What we’ve lately for the riders… coaches, docs, physiotherapists, osteopaths and cooks, that is it is fairly cool and it is the identical for all the massive groups. But from our workforce’s perspective, the enterprise aspect must go additional, in order that we do not lose floor to our opponents.”
Winning the Tour de France itself did not particularly permit Canyon to achieve one other sponsor, these conversations have been already ongoing, nevertheless, it definitely did not hurt negotiations with the Zondacrypto, a regulated cryptocurrency trade market from Poland.
Lauke additionally confirmed that securing a three-year cope with a brand new sponsor wasn’t a requirement for survival however a part of attempting to remain forward within the sport.
“We wouldn’t have been in bother, we have been safe. All of our companions we had from the start have been dedicated to the workforce already lengthy earlier than the Tour and so they wish to proceed the journey.
“We had conversations with [Zondacrypto] already, earlier than the Tour.
“What it did permit us is we might add one or two extra riders. We might provide a number of extra coaching camps to the riders and it permits us to work extra intimately to create a good higher infrastructure and higher steerage for the riders all through the season.”
Heading again to the Tour de France Femmes as defending champions
Personnel-wise, Lauke’s workforce has grown in high quality for 2025, by including 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, in addition they have creating stars in Neve Bradbury and Antonia Niedermaier.
When they head again to the Tour in its standard July slot later this season, this depth shall be very important in opposition to GC favourites Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime). But buoyed by their victory, Lauke is hopeful 2024 will not be a spotlight however the begin of one thing larger.
“I imply depth inside your workforce is certainly useful as a result of you possibly can create a tactical strategy that’s unpredictable in direction of your opponents,” mentioned Lauke.
“If one rider has a nasty day, then one other can step in, so it provides you a lot extra alternatives, and I’m fairly assured we could have a really aggressive group once more on the Tour de France Femmes subsequent 12 months.
“We’re trying ahead to it and I wish to say that, we received the Tour this 12 months. We have it in our pocket. We are glad about it, and we see it as a blessing.
“But it would not create further stress for us. We will go to the Tour figuring out that we’ve managed to carry the yellow Jersey dwelling this 12 months, and that when you handle it one time, then why not one other time once more?”
After all, their champion Niewiadoma solely returned to profitable methods on the highway after a five-year drought of near-misses by profitable La Flèche Wallonne in April, which she credited after her victory on the Tour, alongside her triumph on the Gravel World Championships in 2023.
Both contributed to a releasing up of the strain of dropping, lastly permitting her to win once more and on the largest stage no much less. Niewiadoma might not have received a stage and sure, her time gained was resulting from Vollering crashing on stage 5. But when the stress got here on Alpe d’Huez and he or she obtained dropped, her composure rose to the highest and he or she obtained the job executed.
“Winning the Tour does one thing to the riders. It provides them further confidence after they’re on this workforce, figuring out, ‘OK, we might handle it,'” Lauke mentioned.
“It provides confidence to Kasia [Niewiadoma] herself additionally that she already received it as soon as. Even if there is not any stress from the workforce, high-performance athletes all the time put stress on themselves.
“But she is aware of she did it as soon as in her life, which many high-profile riders won’t ever obtain. She has that one factor in her pocket, and one other time could be good, but when it is to not be, she nonetheless has that one and I believe that additionally does one thing along with your thoughts.”
Addressing an inbuilt confidence drawback
Inspiring this profitable confidence is one thing Lauke admits is tremendous essential for Canyon-SRAM, who’ve lengthy been one of many prime 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 stage on the RideLondon Classique ended a four-year dry spell. In 2024 they solely received six races however 5 have been at WorldTour degree, nevertheless, that is properly away from SD Worx-Protime’s 64 victories or Lidl-Trek’s 17.
With a newfound depth, Lauke is hoping to win larger and extra usually, and so they’ve obtained off to a very good begin on the Tour Down Under with Dygert profitable a stage. But that deficit of 58 wins to the Dutch workforce is one thing they’re going to wish to eat into all through the approaching 12 months.
“It is essential to win extra. In the top, profitable bike races as a high-performance workforce is the essence of the skilled sport,” mentioned the workforce boss.
“When we take a look at coming again to the depth of the workforce, when it comes to rider high quality, we’ve the chance and talent to make adjustments and changes from two years in the past when our price range grew.
“It was all the time a price range factor and with the expansion of the price range, we might rent completely different riders who’ve extra high quality, with out being disrespectful to any particular person we had earlier than, you would see the outcomes have been higher – we had extra prime 10s, extra podiums.”
Lauke additionally revealed {that a} insecurity has been a team-wide difficulty in recent times, with inspiring perception important to their technique going ahead. Winning the Tour ought to change issues, nevertheless.
“In profitable, you will be as sturdy as you need, however there are lots of points which have to come back collectively and one in every of them is confidence, which we’ve all the time had an issue with our riders,” he mentioned.
“Although we attempt to assist them, we attempt to inform them how good and powerful they’re, nearly all of our riders had a confidence drawback in our workforce. This is what we have to work arduous on to alter as a result of there is not any want for any of them to have a confidence drawback.
“They are extremely proficient and have achieved quite a bit of their profession. I believe with these new additions, we’ve a good higher workforce.
“At least, in each place we’re backed up by one other sturdy rider. We have world-class time triallists, we’ve world-class climbers, we’ve world-class puncheurs and we’ve world-class sprinters. It’s not less than two of them in every in every division and this offers us confidence that we are going to win extra bike races sooner or later.”