2022 Team Preview: Liv Racing Xstra

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Who?

• Manager:  Eric van den Boom
• Squad size: 13
• Average age: 25.5

It's the second year marking the team's transition from the eye-popping orange of CCC-Liv to the classy purple and black floral of Liv Racing. The Dutch team has undergone some significant sponsor changes over the years from DBS Bank,
Nederland bloeit, Rabobank, WM3 and Waowdeals, and while financial stability might have seemed wavering at times, it stands out as one of the most historical and long-running women's cycling programmes. 

During the last two decades, the team was primarily led by 13-time world champion Marianne Vos and has seen other world champions like Annemiek van Vleuten, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Lucinda Brand, Anna van der Breggen and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, along with star performers Megan Guarnier and Kasia Niewiadoma pass through their ranks. Vos has since moved on to Jumbo-Visma, where she will begin the second year of a three-year contract. 

Liv Racing has since flourished from a Dutch-heavy squad to a much more international roster. This year's team will be guided by incoming sports director Giorgia Bronzini and include 13 riders from seven different nations; Eva Buurman, Amber van der Hulst, Quinty Ton, Silke Smulders, Jeanne Korevaar, and Sabrina Stultiens represent the Netherlands, while the team also includes Rachele Barbieri and Katia Ragusa (Italy), Tereza Neumanova (Czech Republic), Ayesha McGowan (United States), Alison Jackson (Canada), Marta Jaskulska (Poland) and Valerie Demey (Belgium).

The team has gained stability with the Liv brand announcing last summer that it has extended its title sponsorship through 2024 while also bringing in new partner and shareholder in the name of Xstra Digital Storage in 2022.

“Our team was founded in 2009 and is deeply rooted in women’s cycling. Many of the team’s successes have been achieved together with Liv, and we are excited to begin this next phase together,” said team manager Eric van den Boom. 

“Liv has shown time and again to be very involved in and supportive of women’s cycling – both on a recreational and a professional level. The level of ambition Liv has to advance women’s cycling is very high and matches well with the goals of this team.” 

How did they fare in 2021?

• Wins: 12
• World Ranking: 9th

Up from 10th in the UCI World Ranking the previous year, Liv Racing put a big effort in supporting Belgian Champion Lotte Kopecky and Canadian Champion Alison Jackson to victories in some of the biggest races.

The team may have lost Vos last year but they gained Kopecky, who won Le Samyn des Dames, Lotto Belgium Tour, double Belgian national titles, and a stage of the Challenge by la Vuelta, Thüringen Ladies Tour and Trophée des Grimpeuses Vresse-sur-Semois. Mid-season, she announced that she would be leaving the team for SD Worx at the end of the year, and with a focus on the Olympic Games, Kopecky was split between track and road disciplines.

Jackson, also new to the team last year, had a stand-out season claiming wins at a stage of the Simac Ladies Tour and double Canadian national titles. Sofia Bertizzolo closed out the season with a win in La Classique Morbihan.

Wins don't tell the whole story, however, because this team was consistently active during the races, breakaways, and in the finals. Kopecky, for example, had one of her best seasons to date finishing just shy of the podium with a series of fourth places at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Nokere Koerse, Brugge-De Panne, and Dwars door het Hageland, and she was second at Gent-Wevelgem. 

Other riders consistently in the top-10, forced decisive breakaways and offered outstanding support included Bertizzolo, Evy Kuijpers, Valerie Demey, Jeanne Korevaar, Marta Jaskulska, Soraya Paladin, Pauliena Rooijakkers,
and Sabrina Stultiens. American rider Ayesha McGowan joined the team as a trainee in August, and she was both prepared and motivated to jump into the European racing scene. On her debut, she was involved in a decisive breakaway and went on to secure seventh place on the final stage at the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche.

Key Riders

Alison Jackson - Jackson has stepped up her game in recent years. Coming from Sunweb (now Team DSM) where she had an opportunity to develop into a strong one-day race and support rider in the stage races, she has become a key player in the races. 

Jackson has a powerful sprint and she's a punchy climber, which makes her well-suited to a wide range of races including the Spring Classics to the mid-summer stage races like Simac Ladies Tour. She has previously shared some leadership roles at the races but this year she might be given the chance to take on more responsibilities. She's also not afraid to take a chance and we often see her committing to breakaways that succeed to the finals.

Her most important quality is her ability to motivate a team. Her TikTok videos are a sensation and her upbeat personality helps lift the team's spirit.

Eva Buurman - Buurman has made a name for herself as one of the strongest climbers in the sport. She grew through development programmes Parkhotel and Drops, where she had some of her best results before being picked up by Boels Dolmans (now SD Worx) in 2019 and 2020, and then TIBCO-SVB in 2021. 

At Boels Dolmans, she found herself in a support role for some of the biggest talents in the world like Anna van der Breggen and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, which meant she was able to learn from the best but had few leadership opportunities. Her move to TIBCO-SVB looked like it would provide a better fit, however, Buurman has not competed since the Tour of Flanders last April citing exhaustion and over training. 

Buurman will return to the peloton with Liv Racing Xstra, and hopefully with good health and new motivation, to really tap into that climbing talent that she is so well known.

Rachele Barbieri - After success on the velodrome Barbieri is turns her attention back towards the road, having signed a two-year contract with Liv Racing Xstra. She has previously raced road full-time with the former top-level teams Cylance, Wiggle High5 and then Bepink. She opted to place most of her attention on track racing over the last two seasons.

On the track, she won a bronze medal in the Omnium, and a silver medal in the Team Pursuit at the European Championships last year. She has had a focus on the Scratch Race, Team Pursuit and Omnium, which all translate well onto the road circuit. We can expect to see Barbieri among the fastest sprinters on the flatter one-day and stage races. She is an excellent card to play for bunch sprints.

Katia Ragusa - Joining her compatriot Barbieri, Ragusa is a strong rider looking to take the next step in her career. She joins the team from A.R. Monex, and has also previously raced for teams Astana and Bepink. 

Her best results were in 2020 where she was 8th overall at the Santos Women's Tour Down Under and she finished fourth in a stage at the Giro d'Italia Donne, and 15th overall. Last year, she took top-10s in stages at the Tour de Suisse and Giro Toscana, while also showing strong performances at one-day races Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Gent-Wevelgem, Giro dell'Emilia and Tre Valli Varesine. 

In previous years, she finished highly-placed at the youth classifications at major events like the Giro Donne.

Strengths

Stabilizing financial backing with a long-term extension allows the team to offer multiple-year contracts to a core group of riders. It takes time for a team to gel and they have learned to work with one another as a unit, understanding each others strengths and areas to improve over the passed year. 

This is valuable knowledge heading into the second season where the team can now capitalize on what they have experienced the previous year and execute a new strategy for success. 

They keep a strong core of six returning riders led by Alison Jackson, Ayesha McGowan, Valerie Demey, Marta Jaskulska, Jeanne Korevaar and Sabrina Stultiens, who will welcome and help guide the newest recruits to success in one-day races and shorter stage races. In addition, Demey, Stultiens and Korevaar are three of the strongest Classics riders on the team to watch animating the races or supporting their sprinter in the finals. Incoming riders Quinty Ton and Amber van der Hulst will have the chance to develop into the next generation of talent at Liv Racing Xstra.

One of their biggest new strengths is newly hired sports director Giorgia Bronzini. The former double world champion brings decades of racing expertise along with three years of top-tier directing experience to the Women's WorldTeam. The team has also hired former Dutch pro cyclist Wim Stroetinga as sports director and performance manager, as part of a revamped sports management team.

Weaknesses

There are five exiting riders, and many of them formed the backbone of the team's success in 2021 including Lotte Kopecky, Soraya Paladin, Sofia Bertizzolo, Pauliena Rooijakkers, and Evy Kuijpers. 

There are seven incoming riders Rachele Barbieri, Eva Buurman, Tereza Neumanova, Katia Ragusa, Silke Smulders, Quinty Ton and Amber van der Hulst, who all bring added strength to the team. 

However, it will take some time for them get to know each other. They have likely spent time with one another during winter training camps, but it will be in those early-season races where the real learning begins.

Verdict

Liv Racing Xstra brings a stable environment, long-term sponsorship, and a new leader, sports director Giorgia Bronzini, to guide the team on the Women's WorldTour in 2022. While they lost some strong riders to the market, they kept a strong core of talent with which to grow, and they added seven new riders that bring a range of strengths to the team. 

It might take some time for the team to get used to one another during the spring races but by mid-summer we should see this team ready to take on bigger targets like the Giro d'Italia Donne and the Tour de France Femmes, where Liv will sponsor the white young rider’s jersey. 

Their strengths will be in the flatter one-day race and stage races, where they will be capable of taking both wins, stage wins and overall titles, but don't rule this team out for stage wins and special jersey competitions in the Grand Tours. 

The team has financial backing through 2024 and that gives this team and their younger riders room to grow as a unit and to develop their strengths and finesse their skills on the Women's WorldTour.