Ceratizit end women's sponsorship but WorldTour team hopes to find new backer to race on

The Austrian-based Ceratizit Group has announced it will end its sponsorship of the women's Ceratizit Pro Cycling at the end of the 2025 season, marking the end of a decade of support for the sport by the cutting tools and hard materials company. 

In an announcement sent to Cyclingnews, the team said it is "actively exploring new sponsorship opportunities for the next UCI Women’s WorldTour license period (2025–2027) and remains firmly committed to continuing its presence at the highest level of women’s professional cycling." 

Team manager Claude Sun, who rose from a role as directeur sportif, is leading the search for new backers as the team intends to continue. WorldTour licenses will be renewed at the end of 2025, for the 2026-2028 period.

The team was known as Ceratizit-WNT until this year, but WNT was not a secondary sponsor, rather another brand under the Ceratizit Group umbrella. Ceratizit Group brands have been the only naming sponsors of the team since 2016.

The 14-rider Ceratizit Pro Cycling roster includes Daniek Hengeveld, Polish national champion Marta Jaskulska, France's Dilyxine Miermont and Switzerland's Elena Hartmann. 

Germany's Lisa Brennauer rode for the team until 2022 and Martina Fidanza and Cédrine Kerbaol were part of the 2024 roster, with the latter winning a stage of the Tour de France Femmes last August.

Hengeveld won the opening stage of this year's Tour Down Under, while Hartmann recently won the Tour El Salvador. 

"Since the team’s founding in 2014, both the Ceratizit Group and the team behind Ceratizit Pro Cycling have proudly contributed to the growth and visibility of women’s cycling, helping to develop world-class talent and achieving remarkable success, including 65 road victories, 13 WorldTour wins, 16 world titles on the track, and four Olympic medals," the Ceratizit Group highlighted in their announcement.   

The team currently holds a WorldTour license after being promoted in 2024, but that is subject to change with the current cycle coming to an end at the end of 2025.

The team were late to apply for their license for this year, which led to Kerbaol terminating her contract with the squad, but management stated at the time that the delay was "purely an admin issue" and not related to the financial requirements a WorldTour team must meet.

The outfit will now search for a new backer.