The Italian rider Letizia Paternoster will leave Trek Segafredo and ride for BikeExchange-Jayco from 2023. The 23-year-old has spent most of the last 2 years focusing on the track for the Tokyo Olympics, as part of the Italian team pursuit line-up. She will join the Australian team for an initial 2 years, until the end of the 2024 season.
Paternoster initially broke through in the 2018 season, winning the Festival Elsy Jacobs whilst racing for Astana – the Italian-based team. The following year she moved to Trek Segafredo and won the opening stage at the Women’s Tour Down Under and took an impressive 3rd at Gent Wevelgem too. She became European U23 road race champion and finished the year with 8th in GC at the Ceratizit Challenge.
Since the Covid pandemic-affected 2020 season she has been quieter with only the Italian Nats and Ceratizit Challenge on her race calendar that year, both a DNF. There were more races last year but 10th at the Italian Nats TT was her best result all year on the road, whilst continuing to take impressive track results with the Tokyo Olympics in mind. She became Elimination Race race World Champion on the track at the end of 2021.
She has felt a little bit closer to her 2019 form this season, finishing 3rd on a stage of the Baloise Ladies Tour in Belgium.
“There is no doubt that Letizia is a great talent, it’s hard to believe her age when you consider the amount of results she’s already achieved. It is always special to draw a rider like this, who has so much experience, but also so much potential.”
“We feel that Letizia will fit well into the women’s team and it is challenging for us to have such a fast sprinter. She will give the team more options to compete for top results in the women’s races on the WorldTour calendar.”
Brent Copeland, BikeExchange-Jayco team principal
