Monday 16 July 2018 16:36, UK
Lizzie Deignan has been named as the headline signing of Trek Factory Racing, a new team that will join the UCI's Women's WorldTour in 2019.
The former world champion, who is sitting out the 2018 season after announcing her pregnancy earlier this year, leaves the powerful Boels-Dolmans squad after five years to join the new team.
The 29-year-old will spend the rest of this year working as an ambassador for Trek and has a contract with the new team until the end of 2020, covering her primary goals of the 2019 UCI road world championships on home soil in Yorkshire and the Tokyo Olympics.
Deignan said she had offers from other teams but it was the Trek project that impressed her the most.
"The reason I chose Trek was because rather than see me as a risk in pregnancy, they saw me as an investment and as a valued athlete," Deignan said.
"For me that was the biggest sign towards truly believing in equality, and I think as an elite athlete, my ambition is to always be with a team that supports you and gives you the environment that reflects what you put in.
"As long as I am 100 per cent committed, I need a team that is 100 per cent committed. From the beginning, they've approached this with that level of commitment."
Deignan's baby is due in September, and she is aiming to be back on her bike by December to prepare for the world championships in 2019.
"The Yorkshire world championships for me is the biggest goal I could ever imagine in my career," the Otley-born rider added.
"It literally goes past the house I grew up in and finishes about a kilometre from the house we're going to live in. It's about as 'home' as you could get. For me there's no bigger motivator than that."
