Peanut butter and jelly, eggs and toast, Snoopy and Woodstock, Pippin and Merry, sunshine and new bike day, some things are just better in pairs and come 2025 Canyon-SRAM will have quite the duo on their roster.
Kasia Niewiadoma renewed her deal with the German team earlier in the season for another two years, making her tenure at the team at least nine seasons. She’s had some solid support from Canyon-SRAM since she joined in 2018, and enjoyed a handful of top-tier results, nothing more monumental than her overall win at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in August, so the renewal didn’t come as a surprise.
What was a surprise, perhaps, was the announcement made by Canyon-SRAM on Friday. Come 2025 not only will they have one of the most loved women in cycling remaining on the team in Niewiadoma, she will be joined by a crowd favourite and superstar of the sport in her own right: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig.
Uttrup hinted at pastures new on Thursday when she thanked her current team FDJ-Suez on social media for five amazing years. Indeed, in her time at the French team, Uttrup grew immensely as a rider, not only with her victories at the Tour Down Under, Tour of Scandinavia, and of course her legendary stage victory at the inaugural Tour de France Femmes. She has matured as a rider during her time with FDJ-Suez without losing the active and wholehearted racing style that is the reason so many fans love her.
Uttrup’s move to Canyon-SRAM shouldn’t be all that surprising. The team is swapping her with Elise Chabbey, who has been Niewiadoma’s right-hand woman for four seasons. Together Chabbey and Niewiadoma have animated races, but have not always walked away with the results to show for their contributions. The prospect of Niewiadoma having Uttrup as her sidekick, especially in the hillier one-day Classics, should have fans of women’s cycling setting calendar reminders already in October.
On paper, the two are similar enough that the pairing just might work out. In the last three years, Niewiadoma has proved herself the better “Grand Tour” racer, placing twice third at the Tour before winning it in 2024, on top of finishing second overall at the 2020 Giro d’Italia.
When it comes to shorter stage races like the Tour of Scandinavia or Tour of Britain, Uttrup and Niewiadoma are relatively equal. Niewiadoma’s Tour of Britain win in 2017 was thanks to a gutsy solo move on stage 1 and Uttrup’s Scandinavia victory came after the Dane won the Queen stage, so two different efforts entirely, but the shorter stage races are a bit more unpredictable than the three big ones, the Tour, Giro and Vuelta a España, and both Uttrup and Niewiadoma know how to capitalize on the mayhem.
In terms of the one-day races, they are also relatively matched, with Niewiadoma coming out a tiny bit on top thanks to her La Flèche Wallonne win earlier this year. Looking past the top step, both riders have landed on the podium of most major one-day races like Uttrup’s three times third at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, third in the World Championships in 2023, and second in La Course by the Tour de France in 2021. Niewiadoma has two WorldTour wins over Uttrup, Amstel Gold Race in 2019 and Trofeo Alfredo Binda in 2018, but Uttrup has shown a level of constant growth that points to good things coming in her future.
One could argue that having two riders of such similar skill on the same team, fighting for the same results, could be a bad thing, but one thing Niewiadoma has struggled with most in her time at Canyon-SRAM was isolation. Especially in the one-days she has found herself outnumbered by the likes of SD Worx-Protime and Lidl-Trek in the closing kilometres of the race. Take Tour of Flanders this year for example. If she has someone of Uttrup’s calibre with her in those situations, and they play their cards right, magic could happen.
Over the past three years, Canyon-SRAM has rebuilt its team, brought in younger talent and focused on the big picture. The strategy has paid off for them with riders like Ricarda Bauernfeind and Antonia Niedermaier, both of whom won stages of Grand Tours last year (Bauernfeind at the 2023 Tour and Niedermaier at the Giro that same year). Chloe Dygert, who signed for the team for the 2021 season, has come into her own this year having racked up 37 race days in Canyon-SRAM kit in four years. All three riders renewed their deals with the team through 2025 and for Dygert an additional season.
Not to mention the great Australian hope that is Neve Bradbury, after her phenomenal season that included a stage win at Tour de Suisse and the Giro, plus third overall at the Italian Grand Tour, Canyon-SRAM is keeping Bradbury through 2027.
The wins from Bauernfeind, Niedermaier, and Bradbury were all the outcomes of gutsy attacks, and that’s something Uttrup loves to do. Like Niewiadoma, Uttrup races with her heart, so for many reasons the move to Canyon-SRAM sounds like a great one.
The future of Canyon-SRAM racing is looking brighter than ever, even if they are losing Chabbey to FDJ-Suez. Just picture one of Uttrup’s charismatic interviews coupled with Canyon-SRAM’s stunning team kit. Then imagine two of the most positive women in the sport, both with contagious smiles, on the same team racing full gas, putting the hammer down. The 2025 season can’t come soon enough.
Did we do a good job with this story?