The first announcement of the transformation of Soudal-Lee Cougan International Team has the colors of the European Champion shirt, the one that Adelheid Morath won in France last June and which he will wear in the 2024 season among the ranks of the team Stefano Gonzi.
Source: press release
This winter the team decided to experiment with changes, returning after nine seasons to the women's marathon sector and did so with a champion of absolute value who has signed an agreement with the Tuscan team which will expand its group with another athlete Italian.
Bringing together four nationalities, the team will have a strong international character and will include talented experienced riders and others who have yet to prove their true potential. Adelheid Morath She is part of the first group, the German champion is one of the best XCM riders of recent times and was an important XCO athlete until a few years ago, having someone with the experience and results of the 39-year-old from Stegen joining Soudal-Lee Cougan it's incredibly exciting.
I can't wait for this new season to start. I am proud to be part of the team and, to be the first woman on the team. I am excited and full of expectations, my motivation is to get the best out of myself. I have an incredible opportunity to give my best in a professional team and I am also very grateful to the sponsors for this. It's a dream come true, having obtained a professional contract with a team where my male idol, Leonardo Paez, is also present, a motivation to work on myself even better. I have been a professional athlete in XCO for many years, I finished my career and now I am lucky to be a professional in XCM too which makes me happy and complete. This season I became European Champion and third at the World Championships, so my goals and desires to achieve together with the team can only be great – Adelheid Morath
After Sabine Spitz, Adelheid Morath she is the most successful German mountain biker and can boast two Olympic participations (Beijing 2008 and London 2012), she has had a long career competing in the specialty of cross country in which she made her debut as a Junior in 2001 and until 2019 she was a World Cup athlete wearing the colors of important German, French and Swiss UCI teams.
Born in Titisee-Neustadt in Baden-Württemberg, Morath turned professional in 2003 and in her career she has achieved around a hundred victories and several UCI podiums, in particular in the races of the top German and Swiss championships, Bundesliga and Swiss Cup, but also in races early season on the island of Cyprus.
Numerous successes in stage races, she was champion of the Swiss Epic twice, of the Rothaus Bike Giro Hochschwarzwald three times, she won the Volcat in 2015 and the Engadin Bike Giro in 2019, in the grand tours, she twice climbed the podium of the Absa Cape Epic.
With 42 participations in the European and World Championships, she was in the Top 14 10 times, Adelheid Morath it certainly has the attendance record. A regular presence in the national team since 2001, with the sole exception of 2022, she made up for it in the season just ended with the European gold won in France and the world bronze in Scotland. Four national titles won, two in cross country and two in the marathon, the 2022 one being special, won right in the Black Forest where he lives.
After a catastrophic year in 2018 following a fracture of the scaphoid and clavicle on the first lap of the World Cross Country Championships in Lenzerheide, Adelheid Morath was on the verge of stopping competitive sport, she left professional teams to follow, to a certain extent, the path of self-organization in small teams, but at 35 she returned to enjoying marathons again and now, at 39, she runs again from success to success.
For two seasons Adelheid Morath scores the hat-trick by winning Hero Südtirol Dolomites, Südtirol Dolomiti Superbike and Garda Trentino Bike Marathon, in 2023 it also climbed to the top step of the podium in the Marathon Finale Outdoor Region and dominated the Egadin Bike Giro, undefeated in all four stages .
With the blue shirt with a row of stars of the European Champion, in 2024 Adelheid Morath will return to a professional team, Soudal-Lee Cougan International Team and this step will only increase his ambitions to obtain other great results, which means being a protagonist in every race and fighting for podiums and victories.
