Former mountain bike world and Olympic champion Jolanda Neff will ride on the Fenix-Premier Tech squad for two years from 2027, the Belgian team have announced.
At 33-years-old, the Swiss rider is experienced across road and cyclo-cross, but she is best known for her exploits on the mountain bike, a discipline where she has gained a wealth of success.
Not only did she win Olympic gold in Tokyo, she was cross-country World Champion in 2017 and the cross-country MTB Marathon rainbow jersey winner the year before that. She also boasts 16 elite World Cup race victories in her career.
While Neff might not have been quite as successful on the cyclo-cross field, she has a total of 11 wins, with two last season when she was competitive in every race she rode.
On the road, Neff has never won above .2 level, but as long ago as 2014 she bagged third place at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, then a top-level World Cup race, and was fourth and fifth on general classification at the UCI Women’s WorldTour stage race, Tour de Suisse, in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Neff has raced the last two mountain bike campaigns for the Cannondale Factory Racing outfit, but that team’s demise, which coincides with the company’s move to the Netherlands, has forced her to seek a team elsewhere, and Fenix-Premier Tech seems a good fit.
"I’m really excited to join Fenix-Premier Tech, a team that unites mountain biking, cyclocross and road racing at a world-class level," Neff said in a team statement.
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"I will pour my heart and soul into becoming a better rider in every aspect, as well as sharing all my experience with other riders. I have always admired how this team puts a strong focus on women and on creating professional structures for them, as well as developing young riders with a long-term vision. I hope to make a great contribution to Fenix-Premier Tech and can’t wait to get racing!"
Fenix-Premier Tech and their brother team Alpecin-Premier Tech, are a true multi-discipline outfit with a number of riders throughout the roster riding both on and off-road. On the women’s side alone, the team boasts cyclo-cross World Cup race winners Aniek van Alphen and Puck Pieterse, as well as former World Champion Ceylin de Carmen Alvarado. Pieterse is also a past mountain bike World Champion, and has won the best young rider and mountains classifications at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, along with a handful of top Classics.
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A recent addition to the Cyclingnews staff, Owen Rogers is an experienced journalist, working as a freelancer covering the sport for various magazines and websites for more than 10 years.
Initially concentrating mainly on the women's sport, he has covered hundreds of race days on the ground and interviewed some of the sport's biggest names.
Living near Cambridge in the UK, when he's not working you'll find him either riding his bike or playing drums.
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