Laura Stigger surprised the biking world when she received the junior ladies’s highway race world title on residence soil in Innsbruck, Australia in 2018. Six years later, she has constructed a profitable profession in skilled mountain biking however she is able to return to highway racing having signed a brand new take care of one of many largest groups on this planet, SD Worx-Protime, for the 2025 season.
“It was tremendous particular to instantly take the world title in my very own area at my first actual introduction to the highway. I’m now curious to see what I’m price within the elite class on the highway,” Stigger mentioned in a staff press launch.
“It is good that I can uncover that whereas I can nonetheless proceed my mountain bike profession with the Specialised Manufacturing unit Racing Staff.”
Stigger had a profitable multi-discipline junior profession the place she additionally received two world titles in cross-country mountain biking and a gold medal on the European Championships in 2017 and 2018. She went on to win three under-23 mountain bike World Cups and the sequence rating in 2019.
Since shifting as much as the elite ranks in 2020, though she was nonetheless underneath 23, she has secured a number of victories and podium finishes within the World Cup sequence in cross-country and brief monitor racing.
Stigger, 24, at the moment races with Specialised Manufacturing unit Racing, and she’s going to proceed competing in cross-country mountain biking. She can even race choose highway races together with the Ardennes Classics, with SD Worx-Protime, additionally sponsored by Specialised.
Laura Stigger wins junior ladies’s highway race world title at 2018 Innsbruck World Championships (Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
“Laura will mix mountain biking with highway biking. We’re happy that she’s going to do that with us. With Laura, we now have one other good reinforcement for climbing. She’s going to do properly in Ardennes work. Final 12 months she attended a coaching camp with our staff and it went very properly. That is why we took the choice to provide her the possibility to get a style of the actual factor on the highway,” mentioned staff supervisor Danny Stam.
The newest race content material, interviews, options, opinions and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
“The combos of various disciplines is an increasing number of a pattern. Mountain biking and highway biking are fairly complementary. Mountain bikers are normally fairly sturdy within the mountains and might launch their energy properly there.”
Stigger believes that her strengths are in punchier highway races however that she must construct her expertise. She mentioned that coaching on residence roads in Innsbruck meant that she was well-suited to climbing in that space, which was why she positioned a concentrate on the highway Worlds six years in the past.
“That succeeded and I additionally ended up profitable the world title in my residence metropolis. Completely surprising. An exquisite reminiscence,” Stigger mentioned.
She mentioned she subsequently met Anna van der Breggen, who had received the elite ladies’s highway race in Innsbruck that 12 months, at an altitude camp after which spent a while coaching collectively. She mentioned Van der Breggen, who will come out of retirement and race with SD Worx-Protime in 2025, inspired her to compete on the highway.
“The truth that it has lastly occurred a number of years [later] is gorgeous and thrilling on the similar time. I sit up for now driving alongside her in the identical staff,” Stigger mentioned.
“I believe my steering expertise from mountain biking will turn out to be useful. I hope to make necessary strides in each highway biking and mountain biking by combining each disciplines.”
