After three years with Team Sunweb, Lucinda Brand will start racing for Trek-Segafredo on the road and the Telenet Fidea Lions in cyclocross on January 1, 2020.
The 30-year-old Brand has been a standout on the road for years, winning 2 Dutch Road Race Nationals and a Team Time Trial World Championship with Sunweb in 2017, and in cyclocross, she has been consistently improving, winning 7 races in 2018/19 and finishing 2nd at the Bogense World Championships.
Brand finished second at Bogense Cyclocross Worlds. 2019 Cyclocross World Championships, Bogense, Denmark. Elite Women. © B. Hazen / Cyclocross Magazine
Brand will close out 2019 racing cyclocross for Team Sunweb, with her season typically starting in late October. Like many other standout riders, Brand’s immediate focus is next year’s Olympics.
“Next summer, I really hope to go to the Tokyo Olympic Games,” Brand said in a release. “Immediately after the cyclocross season, I want to be present throughout the spring classics until Liège-Bastogne-Liège at the end of April. Combined with my cyclocross calendar, I have good prospects for 2020.”
Lucinda Brand moves from Sunweb to Trek-Segafredo in 2020. 2019 Hoogerheide World Cup, GP Adri van der Poel. © B. Hazen / Cyclocross Magazine
The acquisition of Brand is the latest move by Trek-sponsored teams that have invested heavily in women’s cycling in recent years. The Trek-Segafredo Women team launched at the start of 2019 and includes notable riders such as U.S. Road Race National Champion Ruth Winder, Lizzie Deignan and Ellen Van Dyck. Brand joins Ellen Van Loy, Fleur Nagengast and Marthe Truyen as female riders on the Telenet Fidea team.
The Telenet Fidea team will race as the Telenet Baloise Lions beginning at the start of the 2019/20 cyclocross season.
“In the past winters I have already gained some experience in cyclocross,” Brand said about being able to continue racing cyclocross. “I love it enormously and would like to do more of it in the future. I want to continue to combine it with racing on the road, the latter staying my main focus for the time being. The combined proposal to ride for Telenet Fidea Lions in the winter and Trek-Segafredo in the summer appealed to me immediately.”
Featured image: Bart Hazen
