Elite women's world champion Magdeleine Vallieres will remain on the EF Education-Oatly women's team through the next Olympic Games in 2028, the young Canadian star given a one-year extension to her contract that already had her in the Women's WorldTour for the next three seasons.
The reigning road World Champion has already announced that her 2026 campaign will begin at the Tour Down Under, her first appearance at the Australian stage race. It also marks the first time the rainbow jersey will be part of the peloton at the early-season race.
Vallieres now has the longest contract deal with the WorldTour squad. Teammates Noemi Rüegg and Mirre Knaven are next in line with terms through 2027.
“I learned a lot from helping others. I won the worlds because of it," Vallieres said about her development as a domestique in the past four seasons with EF Education.
"Now, I am looking forward to taking a different approach and trying to bring everything I learned to race more as a leader. I also know that I still have a lot to learn to be consistent at the top and I'm looking forward to taking this as an opportunity to continue learning in this new role and learn together with my teammates."
Vallieres began her journey in the professional peloton with a move from Canada to Switzerland in 2020 to compete on the World Cycling Centre squad, then joined EF Education in 2022 when the squad was part of the TIBCO-SVB programme. When EF Education-Cannondale formed their own Continental-level squad in 2024, Vallieres was given a contract as one of the original riders.
In that debut season, Vallieres went on to earn her first professional race in just her second race day of the season, soloing to victory at the Trofeo Palma Femina. She then won the Canadian criterium championship in June.
A few weeks after turning 24, the slight but powerful Canadian pulled off a daring solo attack in Kigali at the Worlds which resulted in her successfully claiming a rainbow jersey, her only race victory of the season. In the distinct colours as world champion for her final two races of the season, she netted two top 10s in the hilly late-season Italian one-day races.
“Daring to race and have confidence in herself and finally get that world championship win was really inspirational for all of our riders,” said team General Manager Esra Tromp in a team statement.
"Mags will draw a lot of confidence from the jersey and will get more confidence from the team to go out and race a lot of finales and find more wins.
"For the other girls now, seeing her rainbow jersey there in the group when they are out training or at dinner will make them think, ‘Okay, now we need to step up, because we have the World Champion in our team and we need to show that in the races. We need to be able to help her'."
After a start with WorldTour racing in the Southern Hemisphere, Vallieres is expected to focus on a block of Spring Classics. She has her sights set on retaining the rainbow stripes on home soil when the Road Worlds take place in Quebec, September 20-27, 2026.
