Movistar Staff Ladies have steadily grown during the last 5 seasons to turn out to be one of many excellent groups racing on Ladies’s WorldTour. Since beginning in 2018 with the objective of offering alternatives to Spanish riders, they’ve flourished little-by-little every season right into a profitable crew with a global roster.
The blue-clad squad made their largest rider signing final 12 months with former highway and time trial World Champion and reigning Olympic time trial champion Annemiek van Vleuten. She introduced the crew victories on the Tour of Flanders but additionally on house soil at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, Emakumeen Nafarroako Ladies’s Elite Classics, Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa Ladies and Ceratizit Problem by La Vuelta. In the end, she gave the crew a certain card to play for wins in top-tier professional bike races.
The crew have maintained their intent to develop future expertise, too, with fast-rising abilities like Emma Norsgaard and crew newcomers Arlenis Sierra and Sarah Gigante. Collectively these riders make up the way forward for Movistar Staff Ladies at a variety of races together with the punchy one-day races, sprints, and mountainous stage races.
The crew introduced a 14-rider roster, as soon as once more led by Van Vleuten, and that additionally contains Sierra, Gigante, Norsgaard together with Katrine Aalerud, Aude Biannic, Jelena Erić, Alicia González, Barbara Guarischi, Sheyla Gutiérrez, Sara Martín, Lourdes Oyarbide, Paula Patiño, and Gloria Rodríguez.
How did they fare in 2021?
Wins: 21
World Rating: Third
Staff Movistar Ladies secured 21 victories final 12 months shared amongst Van Vleuten, Norsgaard, Aalerud, Erić, and Leah Thomas, together with the very good crew effort by supporting riders on the races.
The entire riders performed a task within the crew securing third place within the UCI World Rating behind SD Worx and Trek-Segafredo. Nonetheless, van Vleuten’s whopping 5,053.33 factors, which secured her the person rating lead, made up the vast majority of the crew’s total 9067.66 factors.
General, the crew fared effectively final 12 months with success throughout a variety of terrain from the Spring Classics to stage races and in any respect ranges from x.1-, x.Professional, and WWT races on the worldwide calendar.
Van Vleuten introduced the crew success within the spring with wins at Dwars door Vlaanderen and Tour of Flanders, their largest win ever, together with a collection of races in Spain that have been essential to the crew and their house sponsors. She additionally gained the Women Tour of Norway. Norsgaard secured wins at early-season stage race Competition Elsy Jacobs, Thüringen Women Tour, Giro d’Italia Donne. Aalerud and Erić secured nationwide titles in Norway and Serbia, respectively, whereas Thomas gained the Tour de l’Ardeche to shut out a profitable season.
Key Riders
Sarah Gigante of Staff Australia (Picture credit score: Getty Photographs Sport)
Annemiek van Vleuten – Winner of each the person Ladies’s WorldTour and UCI World Rating, Van Vleuten introduced the crew extra success in a single season than they’ve had since their inception 5 years in the past. She opted to skip the Giro d’Italia Donne in favour of the Olympic Video games the place she secured silver medal within the highway race and gold within the time trial. She goals return her focus to the Spring Classics, after which back-to-back Giro d’Italia Donne and Tour de France Femmes in July, the place is the one rider who might feasibly win total titles at each occasions.
Sarah Gigante – Gigante joined the Spanish crew on a three-year deal in order that she might work beneath the tutelage of Van Vleuten. They’re related riders – each profitable time traillists and highly effective climbers – however at simply 21 years previous, Gigante has so much to be taught in regards to the ins-and-outs of professional bike racing. She was one of the sought-after riders final season as a former elite highway race champion and two-time time trial champion from Australia. Accidents prevented her from exhibiting her full potential throughout final season however now that she is wholesome, the sky is the restrict for Gigante.
Emma Norsgaard – Norsgaard is among the most fun riders on the Ladies’s WorldTour with a flexible vary that features punchy terrain, sprints, and time trials. She rocketed to success final 12 months with an total win at Competition Elsy Jacobs and victories at Thüringen Women Tour and Giro d’Italia Donne. She participated in her first Olympic Video games. She has prolonged with Movistar Staff Ladies via 2024 and we are able to count on to look at her proceed to develop, win a magnitude of races, all alongside the trail strategy to the subsequent Olympic Video games.
Arlenis Sierra – It was solely a matter of time earlier than Sierra landed an enormous WorldTour contract and he or she signed with Movistar Staff Ladies via 2023. She has been one of many strongest puncheurs within the peloton throughout her profession within the elite ranks and joins the crew after spending 5 seasons with Astana and final 12 months with A.R. Monex. Final 12 months she gained Navarra Ladies’s Elite Classics, a stage on the Tour de l’Ardèche, and two phases and the general title at Giro Toscana. She capped off the 12 months with a fifth place on the Flanders World Championships and a win at Tre Valli Varesine Ladies’s Race.
Strengths
Emma Norsgaard (Movistar) (Picture credit score: Getty Photographs)
Movistar Staff Ladies have shortly turn out to be one of the versatile and profitable groups in skilled girls’s biking. They now really have riders who can do all of it. With Van Vleuten and Gigante, the crew have a veteran champion and her protégé for the hilly Classics, time trials, and high-mountain stage race just like the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France Femmes. Van Vleuten continues to be in her prime however as she considers future retirement, the crew will develop Gigante in order that she’s able to take the reins.
In addition they have two champions for the punchy terrain and sprints in Norsgaard and Sierra, each will develop into management roles throughout the 2022 season and past.
Most significantly, the crew have nice cohesion and an atmosphere with which to excel with monetary help and infrastructure, the perfect gear and kit, and a family-style ambiance that makes everybody really feel valued.
Weaknesses
Every season Movistar Staff Ladies make progress with regular beneficial properties and small changes. Two years in the past, they have been constantly inserting within the high 10. Final 12 months, they gained the Tour of Flanders and completed with the top-placed rider within the Ladies’s WorldTour and World Rating with Van Vleuten, and with stand-out success from Norsgaard.
It is arduous to discover a weak point within the crew this 12 months given their dedication to filling the gaps with riders like Gigante and Sierra, who deliver the depth the crew was missing in earlier years.
If we have now to pick an issue space it’s {that a} 14-rider roster is perhaps stretched skinny on the approaching calendar that now contains the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France Femmes in July, the brand new Battle of the North and return of an expanded RideLondon. This is not only a Movistar-specific situation, nevertheless, as the entire high girls’s groups might want to develop in roster measurement, employees and infrastructure to fulfill the rising calls for of the Ladies’s WorldTour.
Verdict
Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) (Picture credit score: Getty Photographs)
In simply 5 quick years, Movistar Staff Ladies has turn out to be one of the aggressive groups in skilled biking. It has been a gentle work in progress backed by a dedication of Telefonica to foster inclusion and gender equality and constructed on the identical administration, sponsors and employees as their long-time males’s WorldTour outfit.
Final 12 months marked essentially the most profitable season for the Spanish crew with the signing of Van Vleuten, and improvement and rise of Norsgaard. The following step is to construct depth and they’re effectively on their manner with signing newcomers Gigante and Sierra.
The crew’s cohesion is their largest asset and so with worthwhile help from riders Aalerud, Biannic, Erić, González, Guarischi, Gutiérrez, Martín, Oyarbide, Patiño, and Rodríguez, who can win races in their very own proper, will deliver this crew to the highest step of the rostrum on the Ladies’s WorldTour.
