Riders leave British Continental team as uncertainty over licence continues

Two riders have left British Continental squad Hess Cycling following months of uncertainty around the future of the team, which is still not registered with the UCI.

Esther Wong and Laura Lizette Sander, two of Hess’s 14 riders, have both now joined new teams, it was announced on Thursday. Wong has signed for Irish club team Torelli, while Estonian champion Sander has joined Norwegian Continental outfit Coop-Repsol.

The departures come amid ongoing confusion surrounding Hess, which pledged two years ago its ambition to compete at this summer’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, but is not registered this year. The team has not competed in any events in 2025, although some riders have raced individually, wearing unmarked kit.

Question marks hung over the team at the start of the year, when it emerged that its owner, Swiss businessman Rolf Hess, was facing allegations of fraud in Spain. The team dismissed the allegations at the time as a “smear campaign”, adding it was “looking forward” to the new season.

Hess was originally on the start list of the UCI 1.1 event Omloop van het Hageland on 2 March, but was removed days before. A representative of the team insists its squad will make its season debut next weekend.

"Hess Cycling Team’s season starts on March 23rd when we will be taking part at the Midwest Classic in Belgium," a team spokesperson told Cycling Weekly last week. "We are excited to start the season and look forward to showing our supporters, sponsors and partners what we can do on and off the bike. We look forward to start the season with everyone’s support."

Hess are the only British Continental team planning to race this year that does not yet have a license. Paperwork is typically submitted and approved by national federations in the autumn ahead of the new season.

Contacted by Cycling Weekly, neither the UCI nor British Cycling were willing to disclose the progress of Hess’s registration.

It wasn’t until the start of this month that Hess unveiled their kit for the 2025 season, writing that they were “ready to hit the races and show off our colours with pride”. An image of the new jersey showed it carried the ‘UCI Women’s Continental Team’ logo, which was not established at the time.

The team’s website currently just says: “Coming soon”.

Founded in 2023 under a Luxembourg licence, Hess registered as British for the 2024 season, with the aim to become “Britain’s leading professional women’s cycling team”.

The team was understood to have a first-year budget of €750,000 (£650,000) – more than six times that of other British women’s teams – which it hoped to grow to €5million (£4.3million) within five years.

A report in January this year in Swiss publication Inside Parade Platz laid out allegations against team owner Hess and his associates, suggesting they tricked investors into putting almost €1 million into a company owned by the businessman that was unlikely to succeed. Hess denies the allegations.