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The oldest American-based women’s professional cycling team will continue to take on the world atop Fuji bikes.
With its most international squad ever – eight countries supply its 14 riders, including four reigning or former national champions – Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank opens the Women’s World Tour season on Saturday at the Strade Bianche race in Siena, Italy. It is one of the 56 events on a schedule that takes the team across Europe, North America and Asia.
"We are in the seventh year of our partnership with Fuji, and our riders are extremely happy to be able to continue to race on the new Fuji Supreme, the SL and the Norcom Straight this year,” said Linda Jackson, the team’s founder.
The sponsorship continues Fuji’s commitment to women’s cycling that began in 1974, when the company backed the first U.S. women’s cycling team – a decade before the women’s cycling was allowed into the Olympics.
“Fuji has consistently supported elite and amateur women racers across all cycling disciplines,” said Milay Galvez, the company’s sponsorship manager. “Under the leadership of our president, Karen Bliss, we have continued our efforts supporting women athletes across the globe.”
TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank scored its first World Tour victory last year, when American sprinter Kendall Ryan won the first stage of the Amgen Tour of California. It began this year with success in three non-World Tour January races in Australia by its two top riders from 2018, Australian Brodie Chapman and Canadian Alison Jackson. Chapman finished on the podium, third overall, at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour and sixth at the Cadel Evans Road Race; Jackson placed fifth at the Santos Tour Down Under, where the team was third overall.
“The team has been an excellent partner for Fuji Bikes over the past six years. They have delivered innumerable victories and podiums around the globe and have aided our efforts to continue developing cutting-edge bicycles,” Galvez said. “TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank helped us develop the fastest Fuji ever made: the women’s-specific aero bike, the new Supreme.”
New to Fuji’s speed steed this year will be a familiar World Tour superstar, former Giro d’Italia Feminine and Amgen Tour of California champion Megan Guarnier. The 33-year-old returns to the team after six years in Europe and will race and help coach its younger riders. The American won the 2016 World Tour, three U.S. national championships, has 19 career victories and was twice a podium finisher at the world championships.
Also back is Texan Lauren Stephens, who announced her return after a year away with a win and a second-place finish at the La Primavera Lago Vista races last weekend in Austin, Texas.
Other newcomers are Nina Kessler and Rozanne Slik of the Netherlands, each a winner in Europe in 2018, and New Zealander Sharotte Lucas, the 2018 Oceania Continental road champion.
Among the returnees is 25-year-old Ingrid Drexel, an eight-time Mexican national champion. Drexel has been the national road race winner three times and five times has won the national time trial, including the last two years.
Another 25-year-old coming back is Nicolle Bruderer of Guatemala, her country’s two-time defending time trial champion, road champion in 2017 and second in that race last year.
The team has two new sports directors: Rachel Hedderman, after five years directing the United HealthCare team, and Ruud Verhagen, over from Hitec Products after two years there.
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