EF Education-Cannondale announce their debut roster

EF Education-Cannondale have announced their full roster for the 2024 season, headlined by Veronica Ewers, Kristen Faulkner, Alison Jackson, Coryn Labecki and Letizia Borghesi.

While the outfit is a UCI continental team, as it is a new distinct set-up after EF Education-TIBCO-SVB folded, EF Education-Cannondale has a team that is up to the level of several WorldTour set-ups.

Between the 15 riders from 10 countries are legitimate options for races across the cycling calendar and the team are expected to compete at the highest level.

“The first thing we did was say, ‘What is important to us as a team?’” Esra Tromp, EF Education-Cannondale’s team manager, said in a press release.

“That was our starting point. We want to be visible in races and we want to be active in the final kilometres of a race, so to do that, you need experienced riders who are physically capable of riding and racing in the final. That was the first box we wanted to check. That’s what riders like Alison Jackson, Veronica Ewers and Letizia Borghesi bring.

“The next question is, ‘How do we build a team for the future?’ Not only for next year, but also for the years after that. We have a lot of young talent on the team like Megan Armitage and Clara Emond who are still new to the peloton and still developing.”

• Read more: New team, new philosophy: how EF Education-Cannondale are plotting Tour de France Femmes success

Beyond Armitage and Emond, EF Education-Cannondale have a quartet of U23 riders – Natalie Quinn, 21, Kim Cadzow, 22, Noemi Rüegg, 22, and Magdeleine Vallieres, 22 – who will all be coming into the squad as prospects for a WorldTour future.

“What they all have in common is they are not scared,” Tromp said of all the riders who will make up the team in 2024. “Our riders are not scared to race really aggressively. Our riders want to race aggressively. They dare to think outside of the box. That’s one of our biggest strengths as a team. We need to win races and not be scared to lose races.

“We’ll use our strengths and we’ll think a little bit outside the box. Of course, there are priority races that are important to us as a team, races like the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix, having a former winner on the team, and we’ll approach those races like any other – what do we need to do to win? That is our main goal, to win races.”

The team has just wrapped up its first camp of the year in conjunction with the EF Education men’s WorldTour team. While the team have not announced their full calendar yet, the expectation is that the team will take on a full European calendar starting next spring.

EF Education-Cannondale 2024 roster

• Megan Armitage, 27
• Letizia Borghesi, 25
• Kim Cadzow, 22
• Clara Emond, 26
• Veronica Ewers, 29
• Kristen Faulkner, 31
• Lotta Henttala, 34
• Alison Jackson, 35
• Nina Kessler, 35
• Clara Koppenburg, 28
• Coryn Labecki, 31
• Natalie Quinn, 21
• Noemi Rüegg, 22
• Lizzie Stannard, 26
• Magdeleine Vallieres, 22