Jan Tratnik takes his abilities to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in 2025, the place he’ll reunite with fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič. A two-year dedication at Visma-Lease a Bike was up on the finish of this yr, and the transfer to the German WorldTour squad will permit the veteran to proceed latest momentum for a seventeenth season.
“Maybe I’m not the youngest, however I’m actually completely satisfied to affix a workforce with so many ambitions. I nonetheless have numerous private targets, however I additionally wish to share my expertise with the younger guys and assist the workforce push the boundaries in all areas,” Tratnik stated in a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe press launch.
The 2024 season has been one in all his best since turning skilled as a 19-year-old, which began with second at Vuelta a Murcia, a pair of third locations at Clásica Jaén and Volta ao Algarve after which a victory at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. That Opening Weekend win into Ninove turned one his largest conquests, in a group with a 2020 Giro d’Italia breakaway stage win in San Daniele del Friuli.
Throughout his profession Tratnik has confirmed to be a helpful domestique on numerous terrain, having raced all of the Monuments and the three Grand Tours. He has represented Slovenia at a number of World Championships and completed eighth within the Olympic highway race in Paris.
When Red Bull joined the Bora-Hansgrohe programme, they made a dedication to including younger expertise and key management as a way to make an instantaneous impression on the WorldTour in 2024. A significant strike for the squad was buying Roglič from Visma, who introduced his huge expertise and palmares, and has now added a fourth Vuelta a España victory.
Throughout this season and headed into 2025, Red Bull has exhibited a revolving door of transfers and contract extensions, together with new signings of under-23 abilities Giulio Pellizzari (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Finn Fisher-Black (UAE Team Emirates), Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ) and 24-year-old climber Oier Lazkano (Movistar). Tratnik’s signing is a strong reinforcement for the workforce within the one-day Classics, in addition to a crucial endurance part for GC leaders in stage races.
“Talent wants expertise. That’s why it was essential for us to signal somebody who has been within the peloton for a number of seasons. Jan is a first-rate instance of a rider who’s each a workforce participant and has the starvation and energy to succeed on his personal,” Ralph Denk, CEO of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe stated concerning the new signing.
Tratnik confronted various well being obstacles in his profession, most not too long ago having knee surgical procedure from which he rebounded in simply 4 weeks final yr. Early in his profession he battled an consuming dysfunction, which induced him to drop from the WorldTour with Quickstep in 2011 and contemplate quitting the game. But he rebooted on the Continental stage at age 22 and commenced a trajectory again to the highest ranks, the place he has raced since 2019.
In July the early switch talks talked about Tratnik as a goal for the Red Bull workforce. Before he makes the transfer for 2025, the Slovenian is predicted to line up at his eleventh World Championships when he competes within the elite males’s highway race on September 29.