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Ahead of the 2024 season, Velo’s Sadhbh O’Shea spoke with General Manager Ro De Jonckere about the road ahead for Human Powered Health.
American squad Human Powered Health endured a tumultuous 2023 campaign, but the off-season provides a chance to wipe the slate clean.
It will be a little lighter on personnel going into next year after it had to shutter its men’s squad due to a lack of sponsorship, but there is hope to be had as it puts all its efforts into its women’s squad.
The women’s team can look forward to another year in the WorldTour after avoiding the chop of relegation, despite starting the season some 13 places away from safety.
A surge in performance and some developments outside of the team’s control ensured their survival at the top of the women’s side of the sport. The team has grabbed this opportunity to invest further into its women’s squad in an effort to maintain the momentum it gained in 2023.
“It’s been a little bit of a turbulent year in general but for our women’s team, it has been a really good year, because we improved a lot,” team boss Ro De Jonckere told Velo. “If you look at the ranking, in 2022, we ended up on the 27th spot in the overall teams ranking. This year, we came 14th. So that’s already a huge improvement.
“It was a very positive year for the women’s team and we see a lot of potential. That’s also part of our decision to focus solely on the women’s team for ‘24 and beyond. With that, we made some more improvements to our structure because we really believe we can keep going on this upward trend.”
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