Under-23 team AG Insurance-NXTG have announced their lineup for the upcoming Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and take aim at stage victories, breakaways and combativity awards.
The team will comprise six riders of six different nationalities in Ally Wollaston, Julia Borgström, Anya Louw, Ilsej Pluimers, Gaia Masetti and Lone Meertens. Maud Rijnbeek has been selected as a reserve.
“Our biggest goal is to show ourselves and our sponsors and we will try to do that by going for the combativity award, but we will also aim for stage wins,” Sports Director Jolien D’Hoore said of the team’s ambitions. “By doing this we can also compete for the white jersey. As one of the youngest teams there, it has to be a goal to be in the mix for the white jersey.”
As the team have not previously competed in the Giro d'Italia Donne, the Tour de France Femmes will be a big step in their development programme, but D’Hoore underlined that the team are there to be competitive, too.
“Most of our riders have never participated in a stage race over eight days at this level of difficulty and competition, so this will be an important milestone in their development. However, part of sportsmanship is having ambitions and daring to pursue them.”
Without a pure climber in their roster, the team aims primarily at breakaways and sprints in the flatter first half of the week, with several options to contest in fast finishes. However, the team have named Borgström as their GC leader, with a spell in the white jersey not an impossibility for the Swedish all-rounder.
“Julia is one of the most experienced riders in the team,” D’Hoore said. “It’s her third year with us, and she’s a versatile rider who does well in climbing races. She can play a role in every stage so she can be our lead rider in GC.”
New Zealander Wollaston, who has already won the GP Morbihan and a stage of the Lotto Belgium Tour this season, is perhaps their best sprinter, though Masetti will also be an option on the tougher days.
Twenty-one-year-old Australian Louw earned herself a spot in the Tour lineup after only signing for the team at the start of July. The oldest rider in the team is 24-year-old Meertens, who brings experience of racing the Giro with Lotto Soudal in 2021.
The team are currently in France, where they have been reconing stages 2, 3 and 4 of the race.
“Everybody is in great shape, and the atmosphere within the team is really amazing,” D’Hoore said. “The riders are relaxed and really looking forward to the start of the Tour de France now.”
The Tour de France Femmes will be the biggest race yet for the ambitious development team, who have hopes of joining the WorldTour in 2023 with the support of AG Insurance and the men’s QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team.
“We really didn’t expect four months ago to be at the Tour de France [Femmes],” said QuickStep boss Patrick Lefevere. “The goal is of course in the future to keep growing this team, and we have the first meeting on July 18 to see if we can be a WorldTour team next year.”
