Evonik - ELKO continues for another season. After joining the professional cycling circuit in 2014 and promoting to PT for the 2016 season, the team is heading into its 11th season - the 9th consecutive season in the highest level of cycling.

One key factor for success has been the continuity and stability, having been sponsored by German chemistry company Evonik since its beginning. The ELKO Group, a Latvian distributor of IT and electronics products, joined for the team's second season and stayed loyal ever since.

Following a strong season with plenty of highlights, none of the sponsors saw any reason to cancel their commitment to the project. The belief in the team to be visible and succesful in the biggest races is unbroken. Full list of returning sponsors can be found below:

While our last season was quite succesful, we are planning ahead for the long-term future. And while the numbers of talents in our team bus has reduced over the years, we still have some very promising talents within our rows that we are excited to watch over the coming years.

Hannes has finished his development and graduates to a full time member of our stage racing core. He excels at keeping a steady pace for longer periods of time and is expected to be a key member of Lecuisinier's support team.

Kristers is developing into a fine allrounder. Familiar with every type of terrain, he is able to substitute into every race lineup on a moment's notice. His biggest strength outside of having no weakness is his ability on flat terrain.

Signed a couple of years ago, Fredrik spent last year near to his home at our friends at Aker to learn in the shadows of arguably the best finisseur duo in the world. Lukasz Wisniowski and Soren Kragh Andersen have mastered the art of competing against top sprinters in flat classics and we see Fredrik as someone who has all the necessary skills to do so as well. Similar to Ansons, he is very versatile and can contribute on various different terrains.

He might only be 24 and not yet finished with his development, but Luke Plapp is expected to contribute already this year as one of the best young stage racers in the peloton. Skilled on both longer mountains and shorter hills and having lots of experience in the wind channel, he can be a factor for us in every stage race.

As the youngest of our talents, Alekss has the fewest expectations for this upcoming season of basically every squad member. Having already ridden two full seasons with our team, he has finally made the first big jump towards the class rider we know he can be. This year, he is expected to compete in the Tour d'Avenir and he is looking forward to his Grand Tour debut.

quadsas wrote:

Krasts will look great in green

After negotiating with all of the 17 riders contracted to us last season, we came to an agreement with 16 on them. Michel Koch is the one rider who leaves our squad with immediate effect. While we did make multiple offers for him, we knew they were not particularly competitive and we are not surprised that he declined all of them. We wish him the best of luck and would love to see him in a protected role for a CT team next season.

Notably are pay rises for our leaders Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier and Jan Polanc who were granted a deserved rise following very strong seasons. Richly deserved but this also limits our abilities to improve the squad in the upcoming transfer window.

This is a very depressing availability list to post. While we don't want to to pull a Rabobank or plan to go full Eddie Stobart for transfers, this availability list is a bit in the shadows of our 2023 transfer season where we entered no less than 30 rider movements (buy, sell, loan) into the deals column of our transfer sheet with the clear goal to set ourself up for the next two or three seasons. As a result our squad contains a ton of riders we see staying with us for a couple of years and a very short list of available riders.

For now, only Van der Haar and Kanepejs look for a move, while Hannes Bergstrom Frisk is the most likely rider to join them if we get a good offer. Everyone else looks very likely to stay.