Lidl-Trek introduced it has launched a growth crew to help their males’s WorldTour programme. Former 16-year highway professional Markel Irizar, who has headed up Lidl-Trek’s expertise scouting operation since retiring as a rider in 2019, will handle the crew.
Irizar will oversee recruiting and signing younger riders, which can compete in 2024 as a Continental squad based mostly out of Deinze, Belgium, the place the Trek Manufacturing facility Racing service course is situated. Rider recruitment can even purpose for younger girls’s expertise as a part of Irizar’s obligations as a scout and assistant sports activities director.Â
“That is thrilling. Particularly as Markel Irizar is the top of the ship, so you understand the blokes could have an important chief,” stated Lidl-Trek rider Toms Skujinš on social media.
The event crew was one of many highway programme’s largest priorities after Lidl grew to become its new associate earlier this 12 months.
“We’re used to managing the sources we’ve.  And now that we’ve extra sources, the philosophy shouldn’t be going to alter. We’re going to have extra stress, after all. We have to get extra outcomes. However we’re prepared for a problem as a result of, ultimately, we’ve a winner’s mentality,” Irizar stated in a crew assertion.
The primary eight riders have been confirmed by Lidl-Trek on Tuesday, with further roster spots to be introduced at a later date. Among the many crew are three 18-year-olds – Louis Leidert of Germany, who was third within the junior time trial on the World Championships in Scotland, double silver medallist at Irish Highway Nationals Liam O’Brien and Patrick Boje Frydkjær of Denmark. Leidert and Frydkjær completed 1-2 on this 12 months’s GC at LVM Saarland Trofeo.
Additionally on the crew are 19-year-old Kristian Egholm of Denmark, 21-year-old Axandre Van Petegem of Belgium and a trio of 20-year-old riders – Tim Torn Teutenberg of Germany, Mats Wenzel of Luxembourg and Nils Aebersold of Switzerland. Each Wenzel and Teutenberg have been silver medalists at their nations’ junior time trial nationals this 12 months.
Lidl-Trek has already developed a strong core of younger expertise who’ve turn out to be leaders on the crew, together with former World Champion Mads Pedersen, 2023 Tour de France KOM winner Giulio Ciccone and 2023 Tour de Suisse winner Mattias Skjelmose, who continues to be a U23 rider. Irizar stated the Continental programme was so as to add depth general, and maintain success into the long run by offering expertise at second-tier and third-tier occasions.
“When you’ll be able to purchase one thing contemporary and of fine high quality, with the know-how we’ve, with the cooks we’ve, with the kitchen we’ve, we should not have any drawback. We’re gonna cook dinner.
“We’d like the efficiency, and we wish to win races, after all. I need riders that come able to be taught every little thing. After we win, we take pleasure in it, however we respect that there are others that are not so blissful. And after we do not win, we do not discover excuses. We have to know that we’re right here due to the followers,” stated Irizar, who raced 10 years with the Trek programme himself.