Gifted multi-discipline rider Lauren Molengraaf is the most recent teenager to signal with a ladies’s WorldTour group as she commits to FDJ-SUEZ on a two-year deal at simply 17 years of age.
Alongside her take care of the French group, the Dutchwoman may even proceed to compete in cyclocross and mountain bike for Intermarché-Circus-Wanty and Lapierre-Mavic Unity respectively, as a part of a singular multi-team deal till the top of 2025.
“It’s a improbable alternative to affix a Ladies’s World Crew, an ideal group like FDJ-Suez,” stated Molengraaf within the group’s press launch. “Moreover, the group offers me the liberty to mix three disciplines. I can depend on their full assist to organize me for all my objectives.
“It is a nice present of confidence. For a younger rider like me, it’s unimaginable.”
The 17-year-old will trip for FDJ-Suez from January 2024 as their fifth signing for subsequent season with Léa Curinier, Alessia Vigilia, Coralie Demay and Nina Buijsman already introduced.
Molengraaf’s greatest outcomes have come off the street thus far whereas using for Tormans with wins on the UCI junior world cups in Benidorm, Zonhoven and Tabor, however the spotlight was her victory on the junior CX European Championships final 12 months in Namur.
Tormans is the cyclocross group owned by Intermarché-Circus-Wanty, and Molengraaf’s step up within the group makes her the primary feminine rider to signal an expert contract with Jean-François Bourlart’s Belgian facet.
“Throughout her first 12 months with the group, Lauren Molengraaf has proven that she is without doubt one of the most proficient athletes of her era,” stated Boulart. “She’s an entire athlete, about whom we’re satisfied that she has the potential to develop to the very best degree in these three disciplines.”
The Belgian CX improvement facet had been delighted to carry onto Molengraaf for the off-road season having misplaced promising skills to WorldTour street groups up to now with the likes of Zoe Bäckstedt and Marie Schreiber shifting to EF-Training-TIBCO-SVB and SD Worx respectively.
Molengraaf is one in all a wave of multi-disciplined youngsters to make massive strikes to the professional ranks alongside most just lately, Cat Ferguson who joined Movistar at 17 and the trio of 18-year-olds that joined Lidl-Trek earlier in the summertime in Izzy Sharp and the Holmgren twins, Ava and Isabella.
Ferguson and the Holmgrens shall be acquainted to Molengraaf having raced in opposition to one another all through the junior ranks, with the Canadian duo additionally taking the highest spots of the rostrum on the junior cyclocross World Championships earlier this 12 months in Hoogerheide, the place Molengraaf completed seventh.
“In cyclocross, I already managed to attain a number of good leads to the elite class,” stated Molengraaf within the Belgian group’s press launch. “For my first 12 months within the U23 class, I cherish the ambition to differentiate myself on this class subsequent winter, with the European and World Championships as primary objectives.”
The ultimate a part of the Dutch rider’s distinctive contract is using mountain bike for Lapierre-Mavic Unity. Molengraaf is a two-time junior Dutch nationwide champion within the self-discipline.
Molengraaf will trip her remaining junior race earlier than turning eighteen in October on the European Championships street race in Drenthe this Sunday.