US-registered WorldTour team secures major boost to budget ahead of Tour de France
The riders of Lidl-Trek show off their new kit including three national champions' jerseys(Image credit: Josh Croxton)
Lidl-Trek have revealed their new stand-out red, yellow and blue colours at a Lidl supermarket in Bilbao during the Tour de France Grand Départ, kicking off a new and bigger chapter for the US-registered WorldTour team.
The international supermarket chain has replaced coffee brand Segafredo, becoming the lead title sponsor going forward for both the men’s and women’s teams, with significant investment for at least five years.
The women’s team will be the first to race in the new colours at the Giro Donne on Friday. The men will race on Saturday in the opening stage of the Tour de France.
The Lidl sponsorship will allow the team to grow and strengthen as a combined men’s and women’s programme. The team will also create their own Lidl-Trek development team for 2024, building the team from scratch. The women's team will grow to 20 riders, while the men's development team
Cyclingnews understands the team’s budget will grow significantly, lifting the team from the lowest third of the WorldTour team budget list to the top third, not far behind UAE Team Emirates, Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers. Tao Geoghegan Hart and Italian sprinter Jonathan Milan have already been linked to Lidl-Trek for 2024 as the team strengthen their men’s roster.
The Lidl-Trek Tour de France squad showed off the new colours in a Lidl supermarket closed to shoppers for the special presentation.
Mads Pedersen, Quinn Simmons, Mattias Skjelmose, Giulio Ciccone, Jasper Stuyven, Alex Kirsch, Juan Pedro Lopez and Tony Gallopin rode down the aisle of the supermarket to reveal the new colours.
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Among the team's Tour de France lineup, Luxembourgian Alex Kirsch and American Quinn Simmons both have their own national champions' kit, alongside Danish champion Mattias Skjelmose (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
New US national champion Simmons has a special stars and stripes jersey and Tour de Suisse winner Mattias Skjelmose has the Danish national champion’s jersey.
Ellen Van Dijk also attended the presentation while taking a break from racing during maternity. She is due to give birth in September and hopes to return to racing in early 2024.
“It means a lot to the team to have a big sponsor like Lidl," Pedersen said.
"They will help us improve with the development team and we can grow and be an even bigger team and so be even more important in WorldTour racing.”
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
