General manager Esra Tromp explains how she built our team of 15 riders
Fifteen riders from 10 countries are excited and ready to take on the 2024 season with EF Education-Cannondale.
General manager Esra Tromp set about building our team’s roster from scratch. A task that might have overwhelmed some, Esra approached the process with a fearless attitude – the same quality she sought out in all 15 of our riders.
“What they all have in common is they are not scared,” Esra says. “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. Our riders want to overcome their perceived limits. These are some bold riders.”
As Esra considered which riders to sign, she kept our team’s priorities front and center.
“The first thing we did was say, ‘What is important to us as a team?’ and that was our starting point,” Esra says. “We want to be visible in races and we want to be active in the final kilometers of a race, so in order 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 and Veronica Ewers and Letizia Borghesi bring.”
But Esra isn’t building a team just for 2024. She has kept the long-term trajectory of our team in mind when scouting riders to sign for the upcoming season.
“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,” she says.
A team is more than just strong riders and savvy racers, Esra points out.
“Then you search for the best combination of characters and personalities,” she says. “The personalities need to be able to work together. We have a wide range of personalities. We have introverts, extroverts, and people who fall in between. It’s a really nice mix.”
When Esra discusses our team’s goals for the 2024 season, she is clear.
“Being out there and being visible in races,” Esra says. “We won’t go to all the races but we are there to win and to always create the possibility that we can win 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.”
Our team recently wrapped the first camp of the 2024 season in Girona and Esra says the mood was jubilant.
“Everybody’s super excited to get started even though it’s still technically the off season and the riders still need their rest,” she laughs. “The riders see the strength of their teammates. They really see our potential as a team. They really feel welcome. They see they are equal to the men’s team after our team camp. This is a great start and we will only build on this excitement.”
2024 roster
Megan Armitage, 27
Letizia Borghesi, 25
Kim Cadzow, 22
Clara Emond, 26
Veronica Ewers, 29
Kristen Faulkner, 31
Lotta Henntala, 34
Alison Jackson, 35
Nina Kessler, 35
Clara Koppenburg, 28
Coryn Labecki, 31
Natalie Quinn, 21
Noemi Ruegg, 22
Lizzie Stannard, 26
Magdeleine Vallieres, 22
