Alberto Bettiol wins stage two of the Boucles de la Mayenne and claims the yellow jersey

When Stefan Bissegger was ten, he signed up for a bike race in his home village in Switzerland. He just didn’t know that he needed a racing bike. The organizer, an old pro, called him and said he could borrow one. He is still Stefan’s coach.

Stefan had fun at the race. Soon he was dreaming of winning classics like Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. He was good at time-trials and long solos and wanted to become the kind of racer who could ride away from all of his rivals on the Oude Kwaremont.

After a stellar few years in the juniors, Stefan came to our team in 2020. He had a breakthrough season in 2021, with time-trial victories at Paris-Nice and the Benelux Tour and an outstanding solo stage win at his home race: the Tour de Suisse. To cap it all off, he participated in his first Olympics on the track with the Swiss team-pursuit squad.

In 2022, Stefan won the European time trial championships, the TT at the UAE Tour, and a rainbow jersey in the mixed relay at the world championships.

He had a difficult start to last season, breaking his wrist right before his favorite race of the year: Paris-Roubaix. He worked his way back into form however and won the Swiss national time-trial title.

If Stefan wasn’t a racer, he would be a bike mechanic. He likes tinkering with the set-up of his SuperSlice and testing his position until it is as aero as possible.

Owain is one of just two Welsh speakers in the peloton and became the first Welsh-speaking athlete to win a gold medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

While he loves to explore new places on long rides, his favorite place to ride is in the Peak District — preferably on a sunny day. For Owain, setting goals and giving his all in their pursuit is deeply satisfying. In the moment that a race kicks it up a notch, he finds motivation in reminding himself that the outcome will be worth the effort. Owain, the runner-up in the 2019 edition of Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, loves racing the Classics and Grand Tours. When Owain is not on his bike, you’ll find him overseeing 5 Rings, his coffee company named for the Olympic rings.

Marijn van den Berg started cycling when he was seven. His dad would take him and his older brother out on the roads near their home, which was just outside the Dutch city of Utrecht, where Marijn still lives. For a while, Marijn wasn’t sure if he had much talent for racing, but he enjoyed getting the most out of himself on the bike. He rose through the ranks, riding for Dutch teams, before moving to France in 2021. That season, he had a breakout year, winning eight races with the juniors, including two stages of the Tour de L’Avenir. He is a strong sprinter who can get to the finish of hard-fought hilly races.

In 2022, his first season in the WorldTour, he earned a number of top-ten places. In 2023, he put to use all that he learned from his rookie season, taking wins at Trofeo Ses Salines - Alcudia and stage wins at the Tour of Poland and La Route d'Occitanie - La Dépêche du Midi. He earned the sprinter's jersey at Région Pays de la Loire Tour and La Route d'Occitanie - La Dépêche du Midi.

Marijn is still looking to learn all that he can and race for results every chance he gets.

Jack Rootkin-Gray decided he wanted to become a professional cyclist when he was seven. The determined young Brit makes his World Tour debut with us this year. Jack brings talent, grit, and pure racing instinct to our team.

Jack had to stick to his line to make it to the pros. He won three races last season, and finished fourth at the U23 world championships, but a couple of years ago, he was ready to give up the sport and take up a spot at the London School of Economics.

Jack grew up in the British track program. It was a great school for him, as an up-and-coming athlete, but Jack has never been one for riding in circles in air-conditioned arenas. He loves racing on the open road and has done so ever since he was six and saw a local club out training round a park near his boyhood home in Worcestershire, England. As soon as he saw those racers, all kitted out on their sparkling bikes, he knew he wanted to do the same thing. His dad, a daily cycle commuter, bought Jack his first racing bike. The summer he was seven, Jack decided his future road. He played football, rugby, tennis, hockey, swimming, and track-and-field right through school, but never gave up his childhood dream of racing with the pros.

A trip to Belgium to race kermesses with some friends when he was 15 got him even more excited about cycling. Riding around tidy parks in England was one thing. Rattling over cobbles at 200 heart beats per minute, chopping corners through corn and wheat fields, and outwitting his wiliest rivals from winning breaks—that was bike racing! And Jack was good at it. He was pretty good at riding around in circles on wooden boards too, but the track didn’t get his heart racing like road racing did.

Jack earned his WorldTour chance with his exploits on the road. He returned to racing with new fire. He trained smart and raced hard every chance he got and racked up an impressive tally of results, both at home and around Europe. His ride in Glasgow, on that formidable world championship circuit, proved that he was one of the best U23 riders in the world. Going forward, Jack still doesn’t know what kind of pro he is going to be.

This year, he is going to chuck himself into WorldTour racing and try to do his best every time he rolls over a start line. He’ll keep trying to get better. He’s going to make sure he enjoys the process too. Long term, he wants to be competitive in the classics, and throw down with the best riders in the world when the hardest, most tactical races of the season are being decided.

Jonas Rutsch loves the Classics and is always excited when he gets to race up the Muur-Kapelmuur. The lanky German won the U23 Gent-Wevelgem and finished 11th at the 2021 Paris-Roubaix. He is a very versatile rider, who is always ready to work for his teammates.

In 2022, he even impressed in the mountains at the Tour de Suisse.

This is already Jonas’s fifth season racing with the team. He says that racing in the WorldTour had been his goal since he was a little boy, when cycling’s historic races captured his imagination. He has now finished two Tours de France and even proposed to girlfriend on the Champs-Élysées after the 2022 Tour.

In addition to racing, Jonas also finished his exams at the German police academy. While he follows a training schedule, his favorite days are when he just gets to ride his bike. Whenever he has the chance, he goes mountain biking.