Team Jayco AlUla will return to WorldTour stage racing action this weekend as the squad heads to Switzerland for the second edition of the Tour de Romandie Féminin.
The three-day race packs in varied terrain and as a result the team has named a versatile six rider line-up ready to take their chances on every stage. The core of the team raced last month’s Tour of Scandinavia, with Urška Žigart, Amber Pate, Ingvild Gåskjenn and Ane Santestban all backing up from the five-day stage race at the end of August.
Ruby Roseman-Gannon also makes the trip having showed strong form in Scandinavia, Plouay and the recent Simac Ladies Tour, while American Kristen Faulkner makes her return to racing following a lengthy time out with injury.
Urška Žigart:
“I’ve felt really good in training since the Tour of Scandinavia and I’m excited for the last part of the season, I’m still hungry and motivated for some good results.
This year the course in Romandie looks really tough all round and all the stages have some significant climbing in them, so I think it will be really hard. Stage two looks good for a climber like me, and it will be important to try and stay out of trouble on all three days.
We have a really well-rounded team, a really strong team I would say. Ruby is in great shape to try something on the stages with shorter climbs and I think we’re all really excited as a team to look for some strong results on every stage.”
Megan Chard (Sport Director):
“This year the race has a bit of everything, and I think it suits our team really well, we have some good climbers and we really want be aggressive on all the stages. Ruby has shown she is in really good condition with fourth in Plouay and some good results at the Simac Tour, so we will be really targeting stages with her.
The GC is really going to be fought out on stage two and we have Ane, Kristen and Urška that will be looking for a good result there. This will be Kristen’s first race back and she will have an open role, Urška is coming back really strong and with support from Ane we are really hoping for a strong result across all three stages, which in turn would lead to a top result on the GC.
It’s going to be an exciting race, probably super aggressive even though it’s one of the final races of the season. I think a lot of people are going to be tired now, but we have done a lot of work with the culture on and off the bike in the last few weeks, so we think that is really going to show in the last few races of the season.”
