Shirin van Anrooij will leave Lidl-Trek and join Canyon SRAM from 1 November 2026, signing a contract that runs through to the end of 2029.
The 24-year-old Dutch rider makes the move after almost seven years in the same team environment and arrives with one of the broadest profiles in the women’s peloton. Van Anrooij has won at WorldTour level on the road, finished on the podium at the Tour of Flanders, taken the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes overall and built an equally significant career in cyclo-cross.
Canyon SRAM confirmed the transfer on Thursday, turning a move that had been expected for several weeks into one of the more significant confirmed deals of the 2027 women’s transfer market.
For Canyon SRAM, the attraction is not simply what Van Anrooij has already achieved. The team believe she still has another level to reach, particularly if she can turn her climbing strength, endurance and race intelligence into more consistent results across the Classics and selective stage races.
“Immediately from my first chats with the team, I had a good, welcoming feeling,” Van Anrooij said. “Personally, it means a lot to feel the confidence that they have in me as a rider.”
Photo Credit: GettyA major change after almost seven years in the same structure
Van Anrooij has spent virtually her entire professional career inside the Trek structure, having joined as a teenager before progressing through Trek-Segafredo and Lidl-Trek.
ProCyclingUK had already reported in July that Van Anrooij was set to leave Lidl-Trek for Canyon SRAM after six full road seasons with the team. The confirmation now gives that move a three-year timeframe through to the end of 2029.
She stepped into the senior ranks after an outstanding junior career built around time trialling, including European and Dutch titles and a World Championship silver medal, before gradually developing into a far more complete road rider.
That continuity has provided stability, but Van Anrooij now feels the time is right for a significant change.
“It will be a big change after being on my current team for almost seven years,” she said. “But I’m looking forward to developing further in a new environment and seeing what we can achieve together.”
The timing is particularly interesting because Van Anrooij is still only 24. She already has enough experience to arrive at Canyon SRAM as an established WorldTour rider, but remains young enough that the next three seasons could define the peak version of her road career.
Canyon SRAM believe Van Anrooij has another level to unlock
Director of Business Jonas Möslein described Van Anrooij as a particularly strong fit for the team’s long-term direction.
“Shirin combines enormous talent and ambition with a grounded, positive personality,” he said. “She is hardworking, eager to keep learning and developing, all while wanting to contribute to the group.”
That emphasis on development is central to the signing.
Van Anrooij is not joining as an unknown prospect who needs several seasons before becoming competitive. She has already won major races and stood on the podium at some of the biggest Classics in the sport.
Canyon SRAM are instead betting that her existing strengths have not yet been fully converted into results.
“She has already shown that she can compete with the very best, but we strongly believe that Shirin still has another level to unlock,” Möslein said.
That makes the three-year commitment particularly significant. Canyon SRAM are not simply adding depth for 2027. They are giving Van Anrooij enough time to develop into one of the team’s central riders through the next phase of her career.
Her 2023 breakthrough showed how high the ceiling could be
Van Anrooij’s road breakthrough came during the period when her versatility became impossible to ignore.
After winning the young rider classification at the Tour de France Femmes in 2022, she took her first Women’s WorldTour victory at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda the following season with a solo attack.
That performance was followed by an equally dominant display at the inaugural Tour de l’Avenir Femmes, where she won the overall classification, mountains classification and a stage.
Those results demonstrated two very different strengths.
Binda showed she could win a major one-day race through tactical aggression and endurance. The Tour de l’Avenir showed she could sustain high-level climbing and stage-race consistency across several days.
Her ProCyclingUK rider page reflects just how broad that development has been, with performances across stage races, time trials, mountain finishes and the Classics rather than one narrow specialism.
That range remains one of the main reasons her eventual ceiling is difficult to define.
The 2024 Classics confirmed her range
The following spring provided perhaps the clearest picture yet of what Van Anrooij could become.
She finished inside the top five at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche before taking podium places at both Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders.
Her Tour of Flanders performance remains one of her favourite memories.
“Tour of Flanders 2024, from riding solo on Oude Kwaremont in the pouring rain to winning the race with Elisa [Balsamo] and also finishing on the podium myself,” she said.
That result captured the type of rider Canyon SRAM are signing.
Van Anrooij has enough climbing strength to attack on the Flemish hills, enough endurance to remain competitive deep into the biggest Classics and enough tactical awareness to contribute to a team victory even when she is not the rider crossing the line first.
Those are particularly valuable qualities for a Canyon SRAM roster that already contains several riders capable of thriving in selective one-day races.
Canyon SRAM want greater consistency from all that versatility
Director of Performance Dan Fleeman highlighted precisely that range when discussing the move.
“Shirin is exceptionally versatile, with a strong aerobic engine and the ability to perform across a wide range of terrain and race scenarios,” he said.
“She can climb, handle demanding one-day races and stay competitive when races become long and physically demanding.”
The challenge is bringing those qualities together more consistently.
Van Anrooij has already demonstrated that she can compete with the best riders in the world, but her results have sometimes arrived in bursts rather than developing into a sustained run of victories.
Fleeman believes experience can help change that.
“With more experience, Shirin can continue to refine her positioning, decision-making and tactical confidence, while bringing all of her strengths together to more consistently convert the opportunities she creates into results.”
That may ultimately be the most important part of the transfer.
Canyon SRAM are not trying to turn Van Anrooij into a different kind of rider. They are trying to make the rider she already is more consistently decisive.
Zoe Bäckstedt gives Canyon SRAM an immediate cyclo-cross connection
Van Anrooij’s move will begin earlier than a normal road transfer because her Canyon SRAM contract starts on 1 November 2026.
That allows her to join the team during the 2026-27 cyclo-cross season rather than waiting until January.
She will race alongside Zoe Bäckstedt, another rider whose programme spans road and cyclo-cross. Bäckstedt has already committed her own future to the team through 2028, with ProCyclingUK covering her Canyon SRAM contract extension earlier this season.
Van Anrooij already owns two cyclo-cross world titles, having won the junior rainbow jersey in 2020 before becoming under-23 world champion in Hoogerheide in 2023.
The discipline remains a major part of her identity rather than simply winter training.
“I’m looking forward to being teamies with Zoe and racing together in both cyclocross and on the road,” she said.
That gives Canyon SRAM two riders with genuine top-level potential across both disciplines and should allow the team to build a stronger multi-discipline programme rather than treating cyclo-cross as something separate from its road ambitions.
A new environment could help unlock the next version of Van Anrooij
The transfer also comes at a useful point in Van Anrooij’s development.
She is experienced enough that the move should not require a long settling-in period, but young enough that a change of coaching, tactical structure and team environment could still significantly alter the direction of her career.
That appears to be part of the attraction for both sides.
Canyon SRAM are acquiring a rider who can contribute immediately in the Classics and stage races while still offering substantial developmental upside. Van Anrooij, meanwhile, gets the reset of leaving the only professional structure she has really known.
For a rider whose career has already contained substantial success, the objective is not simply collecting more race days.
It is becoming more consistently decisive when those opportunities arrive.
An elite world title remains the biggest personal ambition
Van Anrooij has already represented the Netherlands successfully across several disciplines and age categories, but one objective still sits above the rest.
“I’d love to win an elite world title,” she said.
That ambition makes sense given her background.
She has already won rainbow jerseys in cyclo-cross and been a junior world championship medallist against the clock. On the road, her Classics performances suggest she has the physical range required to contend on the right World Championship course.
The challenge is arriving at that level consistently enough to become one of the riders around whom the Dutch team can build.
Her move to Canyon SRAM is clearly intended to help close that gap.
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Photo Credit: Franz-Renan-Joly
Enjoyment remains central despite the ambition
For all the focus on results and development, Van Anrooij has also made clear that enjoyment remains one of the most important parts of her career.
Her response when asked about future ambitions was telling.
“I’d love to win an elite world title, but most important would be to never stop enjoying riding my bike as much as I do right now.”
That perspective fits naturally with a rider who continues to move between road racing and cyclo-cross rather than narrowing her programme around one discipline.
It also helps explain why a change of environment now appeals.
After almost seven years inside the same structure, Van Anrooij is not moving because her existing career has failed. She is moving because she believes a different environment can help unlock another stage of it.
A three-year deal makes Van Anrooij one of Canyon SRAM’s long-term pieces
Van Anrooij’s contract runs through to the end of 2029, giving Canyon SRAM a substantial window in which to develop her role.
She will arrive at 24 with major Classics podiums, WorldTour victories, stage-race success and two cyclo-cross world titles already behind her.
That is an unusually complete foundation.
The question is whether the next three seasons can turn that breadth into a larger collection of defining victories.
The transfer will also be added to ProCyclingUK’s women’s cycling transfers hub, which is tracking confirmed moves, contract extensions, departures and retirements ahead of 2027.
Canyon SRAM believe Van Anrooij can become one of the riders at the centre of their next cycle.
Van Anrooij clearly believes the change is worth making.
And because her contract begins on 1 November rather than January, the first chapter of that new partnership should arrive in the mud before the 2027 road season even begins.
