Jonathan Vaughters: We want EF Education-EasyPost to be one of the best teams in the world

There have been various iterations of Jonathan Vaughters’ teams over the last 21 years.

From the days of the whippersnapper junior squad named 5280 in 2003 to the all-conquering Giro d’Italia team of 2012, and of course the most recent incarnation and now-familiar surroundings of EF Education-EasyPost. Spanning more than decades, it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster for both boss and team under the organisational banner of Slipstream Sports.

Vaughters and his squad are about to embark on a 15th straight season in the men’s WorldTour, and what’s abundantly clear is that the former rider has not lost any of his ambition or drive. The 50-year-old is still setting some pretty lofty goals for the new campaign, and after signing a crop of under-23 talents to his roster, creating a women’s WorldTour programme, and putting together a blossoming junior programme, the aim for the coming years is to create one of the most successful and dynamic teams in the world.

“We’re a few years away from that status, but the components are there,” Vaughters tells GCN during EF Education’s recent winter training camp in Spain.

Sat in the bar of a luxury golf resort that Vaughters and his team will call home for the next two weeks, it’s easy to see why the boss is so enthusiastic.

After all, just a few years ago, the team were on the brink of collapse, and it wasn’t until fans stepped in with a crowdfunding lifeline and then EF matched that commitment that the squad were saved at the tail-end of 2017.

Then, just when the team looked to be building back in 2019, a global pandemic came knocking the following spring, and it looked as though the entire operation could have folded. EF, however, stayed the course, and while several lean years followed, Vaughters’ team survived. With their funding secure, and optimism running through the team camp, it's little wonder that the ambitions are so high.

“This is the first year that we’ve been able to build on what we started in 2019. That year when we won Flanders and stages in all three Grand Tours. At that point, the mission was to become one of the best teams in the world but then COVID hit and we had to pull back all that ambition. We trod water for a bit but were able to relaunch those ambitions with the signing of Richard Carapaz in 2022. The ambition for 2024 is to go one step further and reinforce everything so that we’re back on the 2019 path. So the aim again is to become one of the best teams in the world,” says Vaughters.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Jonathan Vaughters has been running a WorldTour team since 2009

Such a high-rise ambition won’t be straightforward or smooth in terms of attainability. Visma-Lease a bike and UAE Team Emirates have proven what you can do with money, while there are a plethora of squads that have demonstrated how impressive budgets can be squandered just as easily.

EF sit somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to WorldTour budgets, but they’ve been nothing if not canny in the off-season, signing a company of junior and U23 talents for the years ahead, and sprinkling a measure of experience into the mix with the recruitment of Rui Costa. Seven out of the ten new faces on the team are 21 or younger, while the youngest recruit, Markel Beloki, is just 18 but highly regarded.

With Carapaz leading the line, a supporting ensemble that includes 2023 revelation Ben Healy and all-rounder Neilson Powless, the men’s squad looks as potent and powerful as it has in years. There are options for almost all terrains, and while the team is missing a pure sprinter, and perhaps a proven cobbles specialist, they have options for every race they enter.

“We’re starting to recruit in a much more methodical and scientific way and we’re starting to support the riders in a much more focussed and creative way,” Vaughters says as he alludes to the fact that building a road team is only one part of the puzzle. 

The team’s back office has also expanded over the winter, with former EF rider Sebastian Langeveld now fully on board as a member of the management structure and one of the key decision-makers when it comes to signing young talent.

“We’re a lot more robust. The talent that we’ve recruited is truly world-class and top-notch. It’ll take some time to develop but all the components are there. Initially, in the first couple of years, we’ll be inconsistent because of the new systems and the young riders but we’ll win unexpectedly and underperform unexpectedly. We’ll bounce around but that should straighten out.”

In a way, Vaugthers’ team have already started that up-and-down trajectory. They began 2023 in red-hot form, winning 20 races by the end of June. They would add only a handful more victories by the end of the season, but considering that the team won nine races in the entirety of 2022, 16 in 2021 and 17 in 2020, the last campaign was a step in the right direction.

• Read more: EF Education-EasyPost Team Talk: A year of two halves but certain progress all the same

This year Vaughters is hoping that the pillars of his squad in Carapaz, Rui Costa, Healy and Powless can step up when it matters most and provide a level of consistency that was missing last season. At the same time, the young riders will be given their chances to shine but the overall strategy is to routinely challenge for major honours.

“For the Ardennes, we have a super ambitious Ben Healy but we’ve got a broadly ambitious team with Richard, Neilson and multiple options. There are a lot of ways we can win in the Ardennes. For the Giro, we’ll go in looking for stage wins. We were thinking about a GC focus with Ben but his mentality is that of a winner, and he wants to play the breakaway game more than play the GC game,” Vaughters says.

The game plan for the Tour de France is a little trickier to predict from an EF standpoint. Although Carapaz is a classy rider, and has won a Grand Tour to sit alongside his Olympic title, he’s not quite in the same conversation as Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar. Throw a Remco Evenepoel and a Primož Roglič - a rider Carapaz has dismantled en route to winning a Giro - into the mix, and a podium place in the Tour becomes a complicated affair.

Being completely realistic, a lot would need to swing in Carapaz’s favour for a podium spot to open up as it did in 2021 but Vaughters is versatile enough to understand that his prized rider can pivot towards other Tour targets.

“We’re going to have to see that in action to have the team ride GC at the Tour because we’re not a team that’s going to chase around eighth place at the Tour. That’s not our ambition. Ultimately our goal in 2024 is to win races, not win points," Vaughters says.

“If that’s the case, with Vinegaard, Pogačar, Roglič and Remco all there and we do have to change our ambition, then I think that will be well apparent before the Tour starts, whether we can have the ambition of chasing the podium or if that’s a bit out of reach, but either way, Richard has proven he can win GC and stages. It’s not like we have to decide that now. He just needs to get himself back into his 2021 condition. At that point, we can start making decisions. First, he needs to get back to that physical point.”

One of the other most stark differentials at this EF camp compared to previous seasons has been the inclusion and the development of the new EF Education-Cannondale women’s squad. Although they’re not at the WorldTour level just yet the team made several significant signings over the winter, including Veronica Ewers, Kristen Faulkner and Paris-Roubaix winner, Alison Jackson.

The men’s and women’s squads have mixed at the dinner table and on the road during co-ed rides, and they share the same staffing and support systems within the organisation. It’s little things too that have helped with the integration, for example, the team’s website doesn’t just have a tab for the men’s team and one for the women’s squad, and instead groups all the athletes on the same page.

“It’s been really good. We’ve conducted the camp as one team and we’ve embraced that 100 percent. The feedback I’ve had is that all the riders are happy they’ve chosen to come to this team. That’s great and the guys, honestly, I think they’ve been forced to up their game a bit in terms of being social and just being more grateful for being pro athletes,” Vaughters says.

The first few months of the 2024 season will be a fascinating period in the history of Slipstream Sports and Vaughters’ EF Education-EasyPost team.

The young riders will have time to gel as a unit, while the veterans will be competing on several fronts in a bid to kickstart the campaign with a healthy number of wins.

The women’s team will no doubt compete with the best of the WorldTour, and overall there’s a sense of growing optimism around the camp.

Vaughters’ team might not become one of the best teams in the world overnight but they have put themselves in a place where that ambition doesn’t feel so unrealistic. Intelligent signings, strong leadership and the right culture can take you a long way in the sport. After all, it’s taken this team through thick and thin over the last 21 years.