Fenix-Deceuninck

 in 2023 after topping the Continental team rankings in 2022 and quickly found their feet at the top level, finishing ninth in the UCI rankings last year. The multidisciplinary star 

 is their headline rider, but it's the likes of 

 squad, the women’s team started in 2020 and was initially composed mainly of cyclo-cross riders, but has been slowly growing into a road team in its own right, and added a development squad at the start of 2023.

The team still has a noticeable cyclo-cross identity, home to 

 as well as Pieterse, but they have some serious road races among their number as well. Yara Kastelijn is a Tour de France Femmes stage winner, Christina Schweinberger is one of the most consistent riders in the peloton, and the arrival of 

 for 2024 should bolster their climbing ability. 

Only in their second year at WorldTour level, Fenix-Deceuninck have some way to go before they're on the level of the very top squads, but their young and aggressive riders mean they're always in amongst the action, and already taking big wins. 

Christina Schweinberger

Puck Pieterse

Yara Kastelijn

Pauliena Rooijakkers

Marthe Truyen

Julie De Wilde

Carina Schrempf

Greta Marturano

Evy Kuijpers

Petra Stiasny

Flora Perkins

Millie Couzens

Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado

Aniek van Alphen

Cecilia van Zuthem

Sanne Cant

Inge van der Heijden

Annemarie Worst

Sophie Wright

Racing

Analysis

Fenix-Deceuninck Team Talk: Few wins but promising signs for WorldTour debutants

Fenix-Deceuninck raced their first season in the Women's WorldTour in 2023

 are part of the Roodhooft brothers’ stable, which includes the men’s 

 team, and their trajectory bears striking similarity.

With roots in cyclo-cross, they’ve set about expanding on the road since the creation of the squad in 2020, stepping up to 

The future looks equally bright, with parallels to be drawn between the team’s rising star, 

 and the men’s team’s leading light, 

Alpecin-Deceuninck Team Talk: Best season yet for the team who just keep on improving

The women’s team’s rise hasn’t been pinned on the back of Pieterse in quite the same way as Van der Poel dragged the men’s team to the top, but they’re both multi-discipline Dutch talents who shine across mountain bike, cyclo-cross, and road. Combining raw talent, supreme bike handling, and the odd one-handed wheelie, Pieterse is one of the future superstars and, signed up through 2027, very much represents the future of Fenix-Deceuninck.

It may take them a little while to become one of the bigger women’s teams, but there’s every sense that this is a team on an upward trajectory.

Fenix-Deceuninck won four road races in 2023, which, considering many of their riders rode limited race programmes in between the cyclo-cross season and alongside mountain biking, is pretty good going. What’s even more impressive is the team’s UCI ranking of ninth, which is evidence of a greater depth of results and proves how the team were already punching above their weight in their first season in the top flight.

The highlight of the year was, of course, the Tour de France Femmes, where 

 soloed to victory on the hilly stage into Rodez, becoming the first proper breakaway winner of a stage in the modern incarnation of the Tour. It was a huge moment, but arguably made more significant by the near miss 24 hours previously, when 

 had gone within a whisker of doing the same with an audacious solo move of her own. 

Heartbreak for Julie Van De Velde at Tour de France Femmes

This was an outfit completely unfazed by the occasion and the competition, with audacity and team spirit combining to produce more than the sum of the parts. It’s how they took on the whole season.
20-year-old Julie De Wilde won the Flanders Diamond Tour, and Marthe Truyen won another Belgian one-dayer at the Antwerp Port Epic, while the team’s remaining win for the season came in the form of Carina Schrempf’s Austrian road race title.

However, it was a rider who was absent from the win sheet who was the leading light. Christina Schweinberger, the 27-year-old Austrian, rode a full road programme and rubbed shoulders with the world’s best from the start of the year to the end.

She was top-10 in Classics such as Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem, as well as stage races like the Lotto Thuringen Tour and Simac Ladies Tour. She was part of the fighting force at the Tour and in the latter part of the season she had a particularly strong World Championships, with bronze in the time trial and fifth in the road race, before rounding out her season with runner-up spots at Binche-Chimay-Binche and Chrono des Nations.

She may not have won any races, but she ended up 12th in the UCI rankings, which, looking at the calibre of names above and below, was a significant achievement. Her centrality to the road cause was further underlined by the fact that she racked up nearly triple the points of anyone else.

For WorldTour newcomers, and a bunch of cyclo-crossers, this was impressive stuff, and suggests there’s more to come.

Fenix-Deceuninck’s Top Five in 2024

There isn’t too much turnover in the squad ahead of 2024. While a couple of lower-profile names are on their way out, the biggest signing is that of 

. The Dutchwoman, who has also ridden for Boels-Dolmans, Parkhotel-Valkenburg and Liv Racing, brings climbing performance and the sort of experience that should prove invaluable to a youthful roster. It’s also worth noting that Rooijakkers was one of the road pros to dabble in UCI gravel in 2023, winning two events, so could be a good fit for the Roodhooft project’s overarching multi-disciplinary ethos.

There are no other new faces at this moment in time but just as significant a piece of business could be getting Pieterse to sign a new contract extension that will tie her down through 2027.

Where Fenix-Deceuninck’s wins will come from in 2024

While Schweinberger didn’t manage to win a race in 2023, the consistency of her results was a major boon, and the team will hope for a repeat in 2024. However, expectations will naturally rise, and if the Austrian can add a win or two to her repertoire, that would be progress and cause for celebration.

Rooijakkers will bring a lot to the team, and should bring in consistent results herself, but likewise is not a big winner, with only two victories to her name so far in her career.

Elsewhere, there’ll be high hopes that De Wilde, Kastelijn, and Truyen can raise their arms again, and perhaps on multiple occasions. The team will have gained confidence from this year and those riders in particular still have room for improvement. Kastelijn, who has a strong background in cyclo-cross, looks to be going from strength to strength on the road, while De Wilde, at just 20 years of age, looks a really exciting prospect.

That group should, at the very least, be great to watch in the Classics next Spring.

There’s one name we’re yet to mention, but more on her in a second.

Puck Pieterse has already made her breakthrough in mountain bike and cyclo-cross, but the road remains the unexplored corner of her arsenal. It’s risky to suggest that 2024 will be that moment, given that her year will be geared around the MTB at the Olympic Games, but she’s that good that we could well see something spectacular.

You only have to think back to this spring, and her fifth place at Strade Bianche – one of only two UCI road race appearances of the whole year – to imagine what’s possible. Pieterse’s spring schedule has yet to be outlined but you can imagine her riding a greater smattering of Classics in the spring before getting stuck into the mountain bike calendar through the summer.

What do you think about Fenix-Deceuninck’s 2023 season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

News

Race News

Puck Pieterse becomes first Dutch woman to win MTB World Cup overall

Puck Pieterse has worn the red and white leader's jersey since round 1 in Nové Město

 (Alpecin-Deceuninck) made history on Sunday, sealing the overall cross-country title at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and becoming the first female Dutch rider to ever achieve this.

There is still one round of the World Cup remaining, in 

, but Pieterse’s victory was mathematically confirmed when she finished sixth in the XCO race in 

“It’s crazy,” she said after the race on Sunday. "In my mind, I was constantly busy with the overall, so I’m really happy that it worked out.

“The team has supported me the full season. It’s crazy to have been able to wear the leader’s jersey from start to finish. It’s a dream season and I’m just really happy.”

This is only Pieterse’s first year racing in the elite field, having stepped up early from the U23 circuit, where she was not as dominant, just losing out to Line Burquier for the overall title in 2022.

The 21-year-old has won the XCO race at no fewer than three World Cups so far this season, and has never finished lower than seventh, an impressive consistency that has earned her enough points to take the overall title.

Pieterse currently leads ahead of Mona Mitterwallner (Cannondale Factory Racing) but the rest of the top five could all change in Mont-Sainte-Anne, with only small margins dividing the likes of Alessandra Keller (Thömus Maxon) and Laura Stigger (Specialized Factory Racing).

The men’s XCO title is not yet wrapped up, with everything still up for grabs in Canada.

Despite being one of the most successful cycling nations, particularly in the women’s sport, no Dutch rider has won the overall World Cup title for nearly 30 years, since Bart Brentjens took the title in 1994. No female Dutch rider has ever won the overall.

With the likes of Pieterse, Mathieu van der Poel and Anna Terpstra, the Netherlands’ presence in cross-country is slowly growing, and Pieterse’s win is a big step forward for the sport in her home nation.

Perhaps importantly, Pieterse’s overall title and general success this season have earned her all-important Paris Olympics qualifying points, something that can be difficult for riders from such a small mountain biking nation.

Van der Poel, on the other hand, will have to pick up some strong World Cup results in 2024 if he wants to secure his spot in the men’s race in Paris.

After the mountain bike season wraps up, Pieterse is expected to swap one type of off-road bike for another as she returns to cyclo-cross for the winter, where she was one of the top riders in the 2022/23 season.

You can watch live coverage of the UCI World Cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne, as well as the upcoming cyclo-cross series, over on 

. As always, territory restrictions will apply. 

Highlights

Watch: Tour de France Femmes stage 4 highlights

 history, the breakaway survived until the finish and contested the stage win, with 

 honours. The young climber had spent 151km in the breakaway on what was the longest day of racing in 

At such length, the peloton found it difficult to control the breakaway throughout the course of the afternoon and allowed a large group of riders to go clear at the head of the race. It was from this group that Kastelijn made her move with 19km to ride, attacking on the penultimate climb and riding alone to the finish. Not only was this Kastelijn’s first professional victory, but it also moved her up to seventh on GC.

) who appeared the strongest riders amongst the race favourites, with Vollering taking two seconds on the reigning champion. Yellow jersey 

 (SD Worx) battled hard to reduce her time losses, retaining a 43-second lead over teammate Vollering heading into stage 5.

We’ll be showing live and on-demand coverage of all eight stages of this year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift from Sunday, July 23 to Sunday, July 30. Head over to 

 now to check the start times of each broadcast so that you don’t miss out on a moment of the action! As always, territory restrictions will apply.

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Fenix-Deceuninck

Fenix-Deceuninck

The Team

Top Fenix-Deceuninck Stories

Fenix-Deceuninck Team Talk: Few wins but promising signs for WorldTour debutants

Puck Pieterse becomes first Dutch woman to win MTB World Cup overall

Watch: Tour de France Femmes stage 4 highlights

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Name	Age	UCI Career Wins	UCI Points
Christina Schweinberger	27	3	1832
Puck Pieterse	21	0	1025
Yara Kastelijn	26	1	714
Pauliena Rooijakkers	30	2	684
Marthe Truyen	24	1	612