The 24-year-old Dutch rider is a three-time elite cyclocross world champion and reached 50 career victories in the discipline before putting her professional career on hold last December. FDJ United-Suez have not announced a first race or detailed competition programme, with both the team and Van Empel placing the emphasis on enjoying cycling again rather than setting immediate performance targets.
“I’m ready for a new adventure and very excited about starting from scratch,” Van Empel said. “Above all, I want to have a lot of fun.”
Her arrival also strengthens the multidisciplinary direction FDJ United-Suez have increasingly pursued. Van Empel joins a structure which has already signed junior cyclocross and mountain bike world champion Anja Grossmann for 2027 and incorporated former mountain bike world champion Kate Courtney into its wider programme.
Photo Credit: GettyVan Empel returns after stepping away from professional cycling
Van Empel’s move is unusual because it is not a conventional end-of-season transfer.
She left Team Visma | Lease a Bike and paused her professional career at the end of 2025, bringing an early conclusion to a contract that had originally been expected to continue beyond that season.
The decision followed a difficult year in which Van Empel had already taken time away from racing and subsequently reduced her road programme. She returned to cyclocross during the autumn and won again, including reaching the milestone of 50 professional cyclocross victories at Exact Cross Heerde, before stepping away once more.
Her ProCyclingUK rider profile charts a career that had developed at remarkable speed before that pause. Van Empel won three consecutive elite cyclocross world titles from 2023 to 2025, establishing herself as the dominant rider of her generation in the discipline while still in her early twenties.
The FDJ United-Suez announcement now marks the start of a different phase rather than simply a continuation of where she left off.
FDJ United-Suez put enjoyment ahead of immediate results
General manager Stephen Delcourt was clear that the team does not intend to make Van Empel’s arrival immediately about results.
“Fem’s arrival means a lot to us,” Delcourt said. “We all know what a tremendous champion she is and everything she has already accomplished. But today, our priority is first and foremost to support her so that she can rediscover the joy of riding, her smile, and the freedom to fully express herself.”
That tone matters given the circumstances of Van Empel’s return.
There is no announced target race, no immediate promise of a road campaign and no indication yet of what her cyclocross programme will look like. FDJ United-Suez are instead presenting the move as an opportunity to rebuild around the rider rather than attempting to force her immediately back into the schedule she previously followed.
“More than anything, we can’t wait to see Fem smiling on her bike again, enjoying competition, and fully blossoming as an athlete and as a woman,” Delcourt said. “The rest will follow naturally.”
A major addition to FDJ United-Suez’s multidisciplinary project
Van Empel’s signing also says something about how FDJ United-Suez see their future.
The team have already become one of the strongest road structures in the women’s peloton, with Demi Vollering at the centre of their Grand Tour programme. Vollering extended her contract with FDJ United-Suez through 2028 earlier this season after continuing the team’s rise at the top of women’s stage racing.
Van Empel brings a completely different profile.
Cyclocross has been the foundation of her career, but she has also raced successfully on the road and has the acceleration, bike handling and repeated high-intensity power that can transfer naturally to selective one-day races.
FDJ United-Suez are not asking her to abandon that background.
Delcourt specifically linked the move with Anja Grossmann’s arrival from 2027 and Kate Courtney, describing a project designed to accommodate riders who compete across different disciplines rather than forcing everybody towards the same programme.
“With Fem, as with Anja Grossmann and Kate Courtney, we are also reinforcing our ambition to build a truly multidisciplinary project, capable of welcoming great champions with their own backgrounds, personalities and ambitions,” he said.
That gives Van Empel an environment where cyclocross does not have to compete with the road programme for priority.
What Van Empel could offer on the road
The unanswered question is how much road racing Van Empel eventually wants to do.
Her earlier seasons showed considerable potential without road cycling ever becoming the sole focus. She has the characteristics to be effective in races combining short climbs, technical sectors and reduced sprints, particularly when bike handling becomes as important as conventional road positioning.
The wider FDJ United-Suez roster also means she would not need to return as an immediate road leader.
The FDJ United-Suez 2026 team guide reflects how much depth the French team have developed around Vollering and their broader group of Classics and stage-race riders. That gives Van Empel room to rebuild a programme around the races she wants to ride rather than being required to fill a major competitive gap.
For now, however, projecting specific Classics or Grand Tours onto her return would go beyond what either rider or team have announced.
Van Empel’s own message is much simpler.
She wants a fresh start, and FDJ United-Suez appear willing to let the competitive programme develop from there.
A different sort of transfer for FDJ United-Suez
Most September transfer announcements are built around what a new rider is expected to win the following season. This one is deliberately different.
Van Empel already has a palmarès few riders achieve across an entire career, despite only turning 24 earlier this month. The question is not whether she has the ability to win major races. It is how she wants the next stage of her career to look after choosing to step away from the professional peloton.
FDJ United-Suez have given her a route back without attaching an immediate result to it.
For a rider whose previous career developed extraordinarily quickly, starting again on different terms may prove to be the most important part of the move.
