Another signing for AG Insurance-NXTG has been announced today with Dutch rider Maaike Boogaard. She joins the team after 6 seasons at UAE Team ADQ and the previous iterations – Ale BTC Ljubljana and BTC City Ljubljana. Her length of time on the originally Slovenian team has been so long that she now bases herself out of Ljubljana. UAE Team ADQ are having a transfer season that will see their team shaken up. Valcar’s DS Davide Arzeni will be joining them from 2023 and a chunk of riders will move across from that team to this one too. After the merger between BTC City Ljubljana and Ale Cipollini that saw the creation of Ale Cipollini, this latest change sees the team begin to distance itself from the recent past by updating the roster.
Already confirmed to have Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio on their 2023 roster, AG Insurance-NXTG is gearing up for a successful tilt at earning a Women’s WorldTour place from 2024. The team needs a strong score in 2023 to boost their ranking over similar teams like say Le Col-Wahoo and Plantur Pura. The top-15 ranked teams across 2022 & 2023 will be the 2024 Women’s WorldTour teams.
“I have already done many races and got a lot of experience. It would be great to share things like positioning, nutrition or how to achieve goals together and really lift each other up to a new level. It’s also important to share that we should all be enjoying this cycling life and the races.
My biggest dream is to win a big spring classic myself. I see myself as a good allrounder who does well in those classics and in time trials. I think I have a positive attitude to life and like a good laugh but next to that I am a disciplined rider and hard worker for the team”
Maaike Boogaard
Maaike Boogaard will certainly help in that regard. She’s a serious all-rounder, capable of a strong time trial, a good sprint and also performing well on hilly races. Her first UCI win came this season at Omloop van Borsele, where she attacked her breakaway companions late on to win solo by a handful of seconds. We’ve seen her do well in the past in short stage races with a TT stage, including the Ceratizit Challenge where she was 8th Overall in 2020.
“Maaike is a rider with a good head on her shoulders. She is driven and knows exactly what she wants. She has proven in the previous years that she is a versatile rider but I think the cobbled classics suit her most. She is also racing aggressively and is not afraid to suffer. All those riders with headwind around the Ijsselmeer make you strong.”
Christian Kos, AG-NXTG sports director
What Boogaard will give her new team is a rider capable of bringing back breaks, leading out sprinters like Ally Wollaston and escorting team leaders like Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio to where they need to be in say the Ardennes classics. She is a real Swiss army knife of a rider, in the Brodie Chapman mould.
