Double Giro d’Italia Donne stage winner Kristen Faulkner will be racing for US team EF Education-Cannondale in 2024. Faulkner joins the team with two stated goals for next season: to compete at the Olympic Games in Paris and with goals of developing as a general classification leader.
“I want to make the Olympics squad for the time trial, and I want to become more of a GC rider. I’ll probably go for results in races with a time trial. Depending on the race, I can see myself supporting the team or working on being a GC rider. I see myself as someone who can fill a lot of different roles," Faulkner said in a team press release.
"I don't have one distinct thing that I'm good at – I'm not a pure climber, I’m not a pure sprinter – and that gives me a lot of freedom to try different things. The team can use that to our advantage by using me to make the race unpredictable, someone who can win a race but in a very unpredictable way. But at the end of the day, I just want to win with this team.”
The 30-year-old North American, currently at the Jayco-AIUla squad, is a well-known allrounder, with her top victories to date the 2022 Giro d'Italia Donne prologue and mountainous stage 9, along with the overall mountains classification in the same race. Faulkner has also won a time trial in the 2022 Tour de Suisse and narrowly held off the bunch in the opening stage of the 2021 Tour of Norway.
“One of her best assets is that she has no fear of racing aggressively,” said the team's general manager, Esra Tromp. “We’ve seen riders in the peloton being afraid to find their limits and to try something different. It’s really refreshing with Kristen that she doesn’t have that fear, and she has the courage to experiment with a new tactic or to try a new race. That says a lot about her.”
Faulkner turned pro in 2020 with the TIBCO-SVB squad, claiming a notable solo mountain top win ahead of teammate Lauren Stephen in the Tour Cycliste Féminin de l’Ardeche. That team became EF Education-TIBCO-SVB during 2022 and 2023; however, it is set to fold at the end of this season.
The new women's team, EF Education-Cannondale, is set to launch with a Continental licence in 2024.
“The first reason I wanted to sign with the team was that I really wanted to go back to an American team. Being an American on an American team is important to me. The second reason is that I really aligned with the values of the sponsors, in particular with EF Education First being an education company. Education is something I deeply value. I’ve raced on Cannondales before, and I love how they ride, so it feels in some ways like I’m going back home. The final reason is the series of conversations I’ve had with the management. They talked to me as a person and not just a number, and that was important to me going into the team. I also know some of the riders already, and I’m excited to race with them," Faulkner said.
“I've never been this excited about a team before. And I like it. It's very genuine like I really feel intrinsically excited. And that makes me really happy because I feel like that means I'm on the right team.”
Faulkner has spent the last two seasons Jayco-AlUla in 2022 and 2023. After a successful first season with the Australian squad, this year was more challenging for the North American after she was first disqualified from Strade Bianche for wearing a glucose monitor and then had a crash and was injured in June.
The glucose monitor incident deprived her of a podium finish in the prestigious Italian Classic and came when the UCI confirmed that the rider had been disqualified and the results changed because of a "breach of article 1.3.006bis of the UCI Regulations due to the wearing of a continuous glucose monitoring sensor throughout the event". Cecilia Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Suez) was awarded third instead.
"My intent was not to violate any rules or gain an unfair advantage," Faulkner said in reaction to the qualification, as well as pointing out that the device, while on her arm, had never been connected to the app. "I am proud of how I raced Strade Bianche, and I am extremely disappointed in the UCI's decision.”
This summer, Faulkner was hit by a driver while training in California, leaving her unable to race while her injuries healed. She suffered a small fracture to her knee, and was unable to ride in the 2023 Tour de France Femmes, in which she participated in 2022, taking 40th. She returned to competition at the Tour de Romandie Féminin, in which she placed 39th.
“When I came back to racing, I felt like I had had a good break, and now I’m really motivated going into next season. I feel fresh and excited,” Faulkner said. “I also realized how much I love the sport. It can be hard. People can get burned out. But when I was away from cycling, I really missed it, and I realized there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Despite the crash, my love for the sport, my passion for the sport, my motivation for the sport haven’t changed at all. And that’s a really powerful feeling.”
It has been reported that a number of top names from the WorldTeams, including US riders Coryn Labecki and Veronica Ewers, will race for the new EF Education-Cannondale team in 2024.
