Canyon-SRAM announced Thursday that Rolf Aldag will leave his position as directeur sportif after one year with the Women's World team. Team manager Ronny Lauke will take over as interim directeur sportif as the team looks to fill that role for 2021.
“Thanks to the Canyon-SRAM team around Ronny, for making me realise how much potential can be unleashed when a team takes the human factor seriously, and lives the highs and lows as a team," Aldag said in a team press release.
Aldag joined Canyon-SRAM this year after quitting his role with Dimension Data over a fall-out with Mark Cavendish's non-selection for the Tour de France in 2019.
Aldag joined the team as a director during the sports highest-level races including the Giro Rosa where the team finished with Kasia Niewiadoma in second place overall.
"Even though Rolf held the position as Sport Director at Canyon-SRAM for only one year, his great commitment to the team together with his exceptional knowledge and experience helped to unlock the potential of the team," Lauke said in a press release.
"We are very proud of the joint successes like the team’s first podium on the general classification at the Giro Rosa. We thank Rolf for his great work at Canyon-SRAM and wish him personally and professionally the best of luck for his future."
Aldag raced as a professional between 1990 and 2005, with the last 13 of those seasons being for Telekom/T-Mobile. In 2007, he was one of a number of former T-Mobile riders who admitted to having used EPO while racing in the 1990s.
As a director, Aldag worked with Lauke at the HTC Highroad programme in 2008, before moving on to positions at QuickStep and Dimension Data.
Canyon-SRAM had announced all but one of their 14- roster for next season, which will include Mikayla Harvey, Elise Chabbey, Chloe Dygert, Neve Bradbury, along with returning riders Kasia Niewiadoma, Alena Amialiusik, Hannah and Alice Barnes, Hannah Ludwig, Lisa Klein, Omer Shapira, Alexis Ryan and Tiffany Cromwell.
