According to Bicycling.nl, the Jumbo-Visma organisation is considering adding a women’s team to its line-up.

Jumbo-Visma manager Richard Plugge told the magazine that they are investigating the idea.

“Next season, one of the largest women’s teams, Boels Dolmans will lose both main sponsors. Perhaps the team will disappear, maybe it will restart, but riders will probably be released. In any case, we have the impression that there is room for us to build up our own women’s team from the ground up,” Plugge said.

Boels Dolmans was the top-ranked team in the UCI World Rankings and UCI Women’s WorldTour in 2019, and has been for the previous five seasons, with Anna van der Breggen, Amy Pieters and Christine Majerus the top scorers.

The team eschewed the new WorldTeam registration after the two co-title sponsors announced in September they would end their contract with the team. Manager Danny Stam was confident in finding replacements at the same level and stated outright he preferred the team to remain independent and not become part of a men’s team.

Plugge, who has added an under-23 development programme as well as community outreach efforts with the Jumbo-Visma Academy, recognised that more needs to be done to foster cycling for girls and women.

“With the Academy we often talk about the realization of boys’ dreams. But we are just as committed to girls’ dreams. The underlying idea is that we want to share our love and passion for cycling with more people in the Netherlands. You can do that through the Academy, but in the long run also with your own women’s team.”

If Jumbo-Visma add a women’s team, they would become the ninth WorldTour organisation to have top teams for both genders: Astana, CCC, Groupama-FDJ, Lotto Soudal, Mitchelton-Scott, Movistar, Sunweb, and Trek-Segafredo all have women’s squads.

Article courtesy of Cycling News