With general manager Esra Tromp and head sport director Carmen Small leading the way for EF Education-Cannondale, it’s time to introduce the remaining members of the performance team.

Joining Carmen as a sport director will be Daniel Foder. The Dane raced for a dozen years before he was a DS on men’s and women’s teams. His DS career began at Team Virtu Cycling where he worked with the men’s team while Carmen worked with the women’s team.

“We shared ideas and we planned training camps together,” Daniel says. “We really supported each other because we both had full responsibility for our teams. That’s why I wanted to work with Carmen again because I know her quite well. We like to work in the same way but we still have two different personalities so I think we complement each other.”

It’s not only the riders who are fired up for the 2024 season.

“Having a new group of riders, a new team – that’s exciting,” Daniel says. “I want to be a part of the building process and I also want to prove that we can be successful. That’s the main thing. I believe the foundation of the team is strong. We’ve set high standards of how to do things.”

As the team’s performance manager, Emma Trott will play many roles: coach, DS, and cheerleader.

“I’ll be coaching some of the riders which means ensuring that their training is a good fit with what the sport directors are looking for with race programs. The riders I’m not coaching, I’m in touch with their coaches to make sure we’re all on the same page for preparing for the racing season,” she says.

Emma recognizes that there’s more to being a cyclist than just train, race, repeat.

“It’s about building the relationship with the riders but actually building the relationship has nothing to do with cycling," Emma says. "It’s learning things like, what do you do for fun at home? Who is part of your family? Do you have pets? Because it’s easy to get too bogged down in the bike. They’re more than just bike riders.”

Emma raced from 2008 through 2014 before she moved to New Zealand where she was a personal trainer. When she realized how much she missed cycling, she returned to Europe and spent the last five years with British Cycling. After just one conversation with team general manager Esra Tromp, Emma knew she wanted to join EF Education-Cannondale.

“That first conversation was two hours. I had to say to her, ‘I need to be at the track in 20 minutes and I’m still in my pajamas!’ But I was buzzing coming off that call. I’d spoken to other teams in the past and I’d never been ready to jump ship but I loved chatting with Esra and the vision of this team really spoke to me.”

Anna, who will be the team’s nutritionist, is also a medical doctor. For the last decade, she has worked primarily with female athletes in endurance sports, particularly in cycling and running, focusing on the role of nutrition in health and performance.

“For me, the most important thing is health, to ensure that all of the riders are healthy from a hormonal point of view and from a menstrual point of view because performance comes from health,” she says.

Anna has been closely involved in research throughout her career and is encouraged by the evolving understanding of women’s health and nutrition in recent years.

“The field used to treat men’s and women’s bodies the same but for some years now, it’s been very clear that the female hormonal cycle has its own needs and rhythms,” she says. “We must work within this framework for our female riders to be the best versions of themselves.”

She is delighted to know that EF Education-Cannondale is committed to women’s health.

“It’s so exciting that the team has this philosophy of prioritizing health, prioritizing menstrual cycles, and genuinely taking care of the riders. My role will be exactly that – taking care of the health of our athletes – so it’s just perfect."