Canyon-Sram have announced the signing of Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig on a two-year deal for 2025 onwards.
The Danish rider has spent the past five seasons with French squad FDJ-Suez and on Thursday she announced on Facebook that her time at the team would be coming to an end.
Uttrup-Ludwig, who won a stage of the Tour Down Under and finished top 10 at the Tour de France Femmes this year, will now join Kasia Niewiadoma among the main leaders at the German Women's WorldTour squad.
The 29-year-old can count 18 wins among her palmarès, including a stage at the 2022 Tour, four Danish national titles, and the overall at the 2022 Tour of Scandinavia.
"I am immensely looking forward to joining Canyon-Sram Racing for 2025 and onward," Uttrup Ludwig said. "I love the team's aggressive racing style and not being afraid to lose. I am sure I will fit right in with this kind of racing. That is exactly the type of rider I aim [for] and want to be.
"2024 has been a tough season for me. Lots of crashes and sickness. I really want to put all this behind me and get back to my old form. In this way, I can contribute to a super dynamic team and reach our goals together."
She added that she'll be looking to build on a challenging season, saying she can bounce back from tough times, as she proved at the 2022 Tour de France Femmes.
"Sometimes you gain strength through hard times. For example, in the first Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, most of the team crashed on stage 2, and we lost a lot of time in the general classification. But the day after, we managed to bounce back and win the stage. That's one of the proudest moments of my career. Never give up," Uttrup Ludwig said.
"It's clear from my talks with the team that the support from the team and its staff is very professional, and I feel confident that they will help me in my further development as a rider. Bring on 2025," she concluded.
The signing of Uttrup Ludwig is the first for Canyon-Sram ahead of 2025, with the team waving goodbye to Swiss racer Elise Chabbey, who will move in the opposite direction.
Alongside the retiring Olympic and Worlds time trial champion Grace Brown, Uttrup Ludwig represents a major loss of talent for the French squad.
However, with Chabbey coming on board and Juliette Labous also joining from DSM-Firmenich PostNL – not to mention the heavily rumoured signing of Demi Vollering – FDJ-Suez appear to have moved quickly to plug those outgoing holes in the roster.
