French WorldTour team Cofidis set to launch women's team in 2022

Cofidis announce that they will be launching a women's team in 2022 to go alongside their WorldTour and Paracycling teams

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Cofidis have announced that they will be creating a women's team in 2022 to go with their men's WorldTour team and paracycling teams so that the company can show full representation of the Cofidis company.

Cofidis would be the eighth WorldTour team to start up a women's team along with Trek-Segafredo, Team BikeExchange, Movistar Team, Groupama-FDJ, Lotto-Soudal, and most recently, Jumbo-Visma.

>>> Which men’s WorldTour team has the best kit for 2021? A considered ranking

Speaking during the team's online presentation on Friday January 8, team president Thierry Vittu said: "I have the habit of saying that a sports team should be a representation of the Cofidis company.

"We have the men’s pro team and the paracycling section, and they reflect a good part of what the Cofidis company is, but it’s a group of 5,500 people in which the majority are women. So something is missing,

“We will have a women’s team as part of the Cofidis group from 2022. It won’t be this year because we need time to put it together and gather the resources, but in 2022 we will certainly have one.

The team will also be hoping that they can kickstart their winning ways again with the men's team in 2021 after failing to take any major victories in 2020.

Big-name signing, Elia Viviani, didn't manage to raise his arms in victory all year despite some close calls and podiums early in the season.

It was clear he was missing something in the sprints when he went to the Grand Tours with other sprinters having superb years. French champion Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) managed 14 wins in 2020 on his own with Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) and Sam Bennett (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) also performing well.

Meanwhile, their star climber, Guillaume Martin did manage some great performances as well as the mountains jersey at the Vuelta a España, but he too failed to take a win and also fell out of the GC contention at the Tour de France during the second week.

Jumbo-Visma are the latest WorldTour men's team to start up a women's squad, having started up a women's team for this year, making marquee signings such as Marianne Vos and Jip van den Bos. Now with Cofidis and others joining with more investment, it's a good sign for the progression of the women's side of the sport.

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Tim Bonville-Ginn

Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!


I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.


It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.


After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.


When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.


My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.