Lotta Henttala is ready to depart AG Insurance coverage-Soudal-QuickStep after signing a contract with the new EF Schooling-Cannondale staff for 2024. The multi-time Finnish champion will deliver her dash to the US outfit with a concentrate on the Spring Classics and the Olympic Video games in 2024.
“I nonetheless need to see the place I can get in biking, how good I may be,” mentioned Henttala, who returned to racing with AG Insurance coverage-Soudal-QuickStep in 2023 following a interval away from the game to have her little one.
“I had a while off from racing, after which I began to assume that possibly I didn’t give my 100% for it but, so I needed to attempt to see how that might really feel.”
The UCI added minimal wage and maternity go away clauses to top-tier girls’s staff contracts in 2020, and Henttala mentioned that earlier attitudes towards parenthood within the peloton have modified.
“I’d say even 5 years in the past, it was uncommon, or there was nobody speaking about it in any respect. However now I do know a number of riders who’re pregnant and having infants quickly or have already got infants. It’s getting extra frequent now. And that’s good. You don’t have to attend till your profession is over.”
Henttala beforehand competed for groups Bigla, Trek-Segafredo and Ceratizit-WNT. She returned to competitors with AG Insurance coverage-Soudal-QuickStep this 12 months with success, taking podiums in phases on the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, second locations on the Finnish Championships and prime 10s at Ronde Van Drenthe and Nokere Koerse.
Henttala competed on the Tour de France Femmes, the place she completed twelfth on stage 3 into Montignac-Lascaux. Nevertheless, she was later disqualified from the race, together with AG-Insurance coverage-Soudal-QuickStep director Servais Knaven, for holding onto the staff automobile on stage 6, a declare levelled by the official race jury that she later denied.
Henttala now brings her dash to the rising roster on the new EF Schooling-Cannondale staff that features Veronica Ewers, Alison Jackson, Letizia Borghesi, Magdeleine Vallieres, Coryn Labecki, Nina Kessler, Noemi Rüegg and Megan Armitage, together with its common supervisor Esra Tromp.
“Don’t surrender. That’s the lesson I believe I’d deliver,” Henttala mentioned of becoming a member of her new staff subsequent season. “And to not assume an excessive amount of. You go to a motorbike race, and then you definately go residence and practice and be with your loved ones, and then you definately come again and see once more how the subsequent race goes.
“You are taking your probabilities on a regular basis to get higher and higher. So, don’t surrender. When you may have a tough time, it’s okay. And have some enjoyable on the bike as properly. When you may have enjoyable, then usually you may have good outcomes as properly. Outcomes come when every little thing goes properly, and it’s balanced.”