Clara Emond joins EF Education-Cannondale

Last month, the 26-year-old finished her first professional season which immediately got off to a successful start. At the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas, she and her teammates won the opening team time trial, she was second on the final stage, second on the overall classification, and won the queen of the mountains jersey. She raced the Tour de France Femmes in her debut season and concluded the year with a string of one-day races in France, including a podium at La Périgord Ladies.

And she’s only getting started.

Clara came to bike racing as an adult after a lifetime of sports. She describes her childhood as “hyperactive” and full of sports and hobbies.

“My parents really wanted me to explore different kinds of activities so they got me into dance and soccer and cross country. I grew up alpine skiing. All of it. I focused more on skiing when I was 15 and I joined the Quebec elite ski team. I did that for four or five years before I needed to focus more and more on my studies. I missed doing sports so I decided to join the track and field team in university. I think I have always had an ease with sports,” Clara says.

She took up triathlon but due to the pandemic, there were no triathlons to race. Instead, she found a nearby stage race to enter.

“I had really no expectations and even my boyfriend said, ‘Maybe you should let the field go and have fun and just be safe.’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ but it turns out I did pretty well, better than expected. There was a stage that was just uphill. That’s the stage I came in first and I was third on GC. That’s when I first thought, ‘Oh, maybe I’m a climber.’ I didn’t know at all,” Clara recalls.

Life moved quickly from there. Though Clara had just begun to practice law, fulfilling her childhood dream of following in her father’s footsteps, when a continental team based in Canada invited Clara to race for the 2022 season, she didn’t hesitate. She turned pro the following year.

“I took the bar exam and it went really well,” she says. “After the bar, we had to do an internship but it was during the pandemic so it was remote. I didn’t really enjoy it that much. Cycling came at the same time which was good timing because I really didn’t know what to do. I was really questioning myself. Should I go back to university and become a doctor? I was in a crisis. So I decided to do a master’s degree in sports law and I started racing at the same time.”

Rather than feel overwhelmed by the competing demands of the peloton and graduate studies, Clara appreciates how each discipline gives her a break from the other.

“It’s really helped me to have something else more than just cycling,” Clara says. “I got injured at the end of August and was off the bike for about two weeks. Having my master’s degree as a side project really helped me to get my brain going and it helped me to feel better. At the end of the day, I had that feeling that I did something productive and was able to put my focus somewhere. This year I had a heavier racing calendar which left less time for school but that’s ok. The off season is coming so I’ll finish my thesis then. Cycling is my priority.”

In Clara, general manager Esra Tromp sees tremendous potential.

“She’s pretty new to the sport,” Esra says. “That’s a bit of a gamble but sometimes you have this feeling that a rider may become one of the better riders in the peloton and quite quickly. With Clara, we spoke about how to develop her. Part of developing is working on your skills that are already strong because that’s where the biggest potential is. For Clara that’s probably climbing and maybe even the more explosive kinds of climbs. We will see what kind of rider she becomes in the end but she brings a lot of energy. She’s super smart so I think she will learn really quickly. The biggest thing is she’s not scared, she’s an adventurous kind of person. She brings a lot of fire.”

Clara knows she has a lot of work ahead of her so it’s a good thing that growth drives her.

“Getting better is what motivates me,” she says, “both in sports and in life. I’m the worst cook ever! But I love trying to improve and seeing things get better. That’s what motivated me when I started cycling. I was the worst and would get dropped but I was motivated. I want to gain as much experience as possible. That will only help me grow.”

“I think next year is going to be really good,” Clara says. “We’ll have a nice, strong team. I’m so excited to wear pink!”