Loana Lecomte Signs with New Canyon Cllctv XC Team

Jan 11, 2022
by James Smurthwaite  
photo

Loana Lecomte has signed with a new Canyon Cllctv XCO team alongside fellow countryman and regular top-ten finisher, Thomas Griot, as well as reigning German XC Marathon Champion Luca Schwarzbauer. It looks like the new team will be a separate entity from the Canyon Collective Factory Team that formed in 2021 featuring Emily Batty and Laurie Arsenault.

Lecomte took the elite field by storm in her first year in 2021, winning four consecutive World Cups and the overall title while riding for Massi. What makes it even more impressive is that at just 22 years old, she could still have ridden in the Under 23 field if she wished. Although the frame will be new for Lecomte, it shouldn't be too hard for her to adapt to the new set up as she brings with her the Massi team managers, Sébastien François and Claudia Baudry, and her mechanic Thibaut Rivière.

Lecomte will also be rinding alongside Thomas Griot, 27, of Annecy, France finished off 2021 with a top ten overall World Cup ranking and a podium finish in Leogang. He said:

bigquotesI’m super excited about the switch to Canyon. It’s a great chance for me and I believe that with Canyon’s commitment to their athletes, we’ll be able to compete at the highest level.Thomas Girot

photo

25-year-old Luca Schwarzbauer, a student of industrial engineering at Esslingen University of Applied Sciences, is also on the team and finished in fourth place at the German XCO Championships in 2020 and on the top spot of the podium at the German XC Marathon Championships in 2021. He said:

bigquotesIt’s a big leap for me. I’m thrilled to have this opportunity. I’m certain that I’ve got what it takes to race with the best and the team structure and training is going to play a big role for me to push on to that next level and compete with not just the best in Germany, but the best in the world.Luca Schwarzbauer

We don't have much more information on the team at this time but it seems that a big goal for Lecomte this year is a gold medal at the World Championships on home soil in Les Gets, she already even has a custom Tricolore bike. There's also apparently more news coming from this team in February with another rider announcement. We'll update you on that when we have it.

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Member since Nov 14, 2018
1,770 articles

99 Comments
  • 238 8
 Ln Lcmt Sgns wth Nw Cnn Cllctv XC Tm
  • 80 3
 But really, this idea of sending vowels to a black hole is like hydraulic actuation of a dropper post, dumb beyond understanding, yet so persistent Wink
  • 22 1
 It’s all Greek to me .
  • 33 1
 Cngrtltns
  • 11 0
 @flyingfox49: flag does not check out
  • 3 0
 I'm surprised Wahoo isn't a spnsr.
  • 9 0
 @flyingfox49: Hmmm, I do not understand either.... :-)
  • 5 1
 This was cool in 2015. Please make it stop.
  • 7 29
flag danstonQ (Jan 11, 2022 at 9:08) (Below Threshold)
 Easy lazy boring unoriginal comment ----> massive upvotes from the community. The bar is low, so low.
  • 1 0
 Спокойной ночи!
  • 2 1
 Th lvl s lw, nd r mthr scks brs n ntrtc
  • 4 0
 @flyingfox49: more like Hebrew as the Greek alphabet has vowels. Yeah, I'm great fun at parties.
  • 69 0
 So how many XC teams do you want?
Canyon: yes
  • 46 0
 well maybe they also wanted one that actually wins a race
  • 7 0
 How many riders do you want to sponsor?
Also canyon: yes
  • 5 1
 @michaelbozof: trying to be like commencal
  • 1 0
 @crsimmons: and now with all the youngsters riding mtb, brands are going to sponsor a lot more people
  • 4 0
 Mhh.. Alpecin Fenix is not a XC team. Except for Ronja Eibl they do XC only on the side (sadly).
The Emily Batty Canyon Team does not feel like they have an absolute focus on winning races. At least Emily Batty doesn't, Laurie Arsenault maybe, but she is not yet on a top level. Also the Batty team seems more focused on North America.
I think Canyon wanted a team that's fully focused on winning World Cups and performs on the highest level of XC. And I think that's great because it means Canyon is invested in their XC bikes.
  • 38 0
 she didnt just win the first four races, she led every lap of those four races. Got out front on the short start lap, and just opened up the gap from there. She won by an average of somewhere around a minute and a half in those first four races.
  • 6 29
flag aaronjb (Jan 11, 2022 at 7:21) (Below Threshold)
 Totally normal, especially coming out of a year of reduced testing, OOC or otherwise. It's about peaks and eating well, according to some commenters here.
  • 40 1
 @aaronjb: Those of us whom have been around for awhile know better than to confidently hold that a rider is definitely clean. But, I'm not sure why Loana deserves more scrutiny than other dominant riders, e.g. Fluekiger, Nino (in past years), MvdP, Evie Richards last year, etc.

Loana has been dominant for two seasons, is the age when new stars often rise, is visibly leaner than many of her rivals, and has undeniably great skills (watch her high-post stuff that other elites can barely ride with droppers). If the only reason to suspect her is "she was really good", why bother watching the sport at all if success is automatically invalidated by suspicion?
  • 4 18
flag ReformedRoadie (Jan 11, 2022 at 8:03) (Below Threshold)
 @aaronjb: Seriously...she maybe should have dialed it back for the optics of it. She, or someone managing her had to know it would raise all sorts of eyebrows. Before they developed a test for EPO, you had guys big ringing mountain stages of the Tour, breathing out their noses. At least make it look like an effort.
  • 6 1
 @nattyd: I like you.
  • 1 1
 @aaronjb: please don’t be ignorant. There is no test for reinjecting your own blood (autologous transfusions). There was no test when Lance was doing it and there’s no test now. You just have to believe that it’s a sport where no one would cheat.
The closest we ever got was this Duke paper that went nowhere:

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181018141217.htm
  • 1 0
 @Mtmw: isn’t this exactly what Biological Passport is for?
  • 2 0
 @Mtmw: They can also test for traces of the plastics that the blood was stored in, though I'm not sure that's ever been successful.
  • 2 1
 @nattyd: The biological passport only detects changes, so if you've been consistently doping since before you got a biological passport, then no difference will occur.
  • 2 0
 @nattyd: yes that’s what bio passport is for. As noted elsewhere in the thread, it has never worked. Specifically, in 14 years of operation there have been zero “adverse analytical findings “. It just won’t hold up in court. They can use it to become curious about an athlete but that’s it.

@Mike-Jay the plasticizer tests fired for two reasons. 1 turns out all modern humans have plastic in their blood 2 glass lab ware.

There is no test for blood doing with your own blood. There has never been one.
  • 4 0
 @aaronjb: Still on your one man crusade to try to impugn Loana's awesome effort I see..... at least you're consistent, but little else. :
  • 2 3
 @DBone95: so...when Armstrong was winning those tours and literally the entire top ten was popped for doping you believed he was beating them clean, right? He also put in an awesome effort.
All the top end of endurance sports athletes are genetic freaks with the latest sports science backing...both within and outside the rules. To crush the top woman the way she did IS a bit suspicious. Sorry.

Maybe I don't follow junior woman's XCO that close, but most of the top riders - from Vali, Jackson, and Tedaj on the road, you hear something about them on the way through juniors. Never heard of her prior to here not beating, but destroying the women's field.
  • 2 0
 @ReformedRoadie: It's a reasonable you're bringing.

As a side note Greg Lemond also was running the calculations of Lance's Watts/KG, and that also arose suspicion.
  • 6 1
 @ReformedRoadie: So just because you never heard of her prior to last year she must be cheating? It could have nothing to do with her being at peak form early while the veterans of the sport had their eyes on Tokyo in July? To sit behind the anonymity of your computer screen and toss vile, unsubstantiated shit out of your mouth about something you admittedly know nothing about is such a 2020s thing to do. Aaron the one man crusader shot Loana a DM and she ignored it and that's what has his panties in a wad..... Hey, this is fun just making shit up. Comparing Loana To Lance? GTFOH
  • 3 1
 @ReformedRoadie: The fact she's only 22 but is racing Elite is proof she was killing it in Under 23s because otherwise she couldn't qualify to race Elite. We don't need to have heard from her.
  • 1 1
 @DBone95: no. not because I never heard of her. because she utterly destroyed the women's field...looking like she wasn't putting in an effort, nevermind an "awesome effort". Your statement implies that the other women were not also putting in the effort. We'll see what happens this season. If w/o the Olympics Neff is more focused on WC races and maybe Courtney rebounds from an off year.

The reference to Lance was mainly for perspective. Was it realistic to think he beat all of the other top tour riders clean, while they were caught doping? Are you trying to say her performance shouldn't raise any questions? Some of those races were like Kramer in the dojo... Even Nino or Absalon at their peaks were not crushing souls the way she did for those 4 races.
  • 1 0
 @DBone95: oooh, what's this "Aaron the one man crusader shot Loana a DM and she ignored it" business about? I have not heard about it, please do tell.
  • 2 0
 @ReformedRoadie: to be honest in the LA era, Lance smashed riders who were equally doped to the eyeballs as he was. So in reference to Loana, are you implying that they’re all doping or none of them are? Whichever way you put it, she was head and shoulders above the competition.
Don’t forget that LA was also World Champion at 21. He was/is an immensely talented and driven athlete.
  • 26 6
 I was sure I was seeing Greta Thunberg in the thumbnail...
  • 16 4
 Doesnt matter who you put on that bike or how many times it wins i still wouldn't buy it becuase of the looks and geometry, hopefully they are also splashing the cash on an updated frame.
  • 9 0
 At least the French flag paint job is better that the Batty edition.
  • 3 2
 weird flex but ok
  • 16 2
 MAKE VOWELS GREAT AGAIN
  • 4 0
 Vowels are expensive to print on T-shirts and jerseys. Vowels fall victim to the supply chain woes... Frown
  • 14 2
 Has that bike been crashed in to a bus?
  • 1 0
 XS frame probably
  • 2 0
 It's size S with 69,5° HTA.

On the exceed she's on XS though:
esmtb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/canyon_loana2.jpg
  • 2 0
 @dmitri6: Basically identical geometry to the Massi iirc.
  • 14 2
 Sneaky! Canyon have just poached a Massi-ve number of XC riders.
  • 5 1
 How long is the "vowel team" contract? I see that ending abruptly.
  • 3 0
 I dont like Canyon as a brand, but we'll see how it goes, i honestly thought she was a good fit in Massi.
  • 2 0
 Doe anyone else think the photo looks weird, distorted? Like the size of her head is too large for her body. She doesn't look like that on other pictures.
  • 1 0
 How can Canyon have two different teams in the same disciplines? That is just strange. Seems like it would create some reality show drama at Canyon. Lol.
  • 15 0
 Tbh the team around Batty is just a marketing stunt for North America.
  • 2 0
 Commencal: Hold my beer.
  • 1 0
 It's totally normal that a frame brand sponsors ore than one team. Scott for example has at least two teams (Scott SRAM Racing and Lexware) which they sponsor officially. Trek had also two (Trek Factory and Trek Vaude). Specialized also has at least three (Specialized Racing, Trinity Racing and Team31:Outride). And so on ...
  • 2 0
 How many riders are actually riding for canyon?
  • 6 0
 Not enough?
  • 1 0
 @pyromaniac: it seems so xD
  • 1 0
 @Hamburgi: 3 XC teams, 2 DH teams, 1 EWS team and we're not even talking of road cycling teams... They want to every single racer or what ?
  • 2 0
 @oxentiel:
You're forgott Gabriel Wibmers cousin and Tomomi Nishikubo. Or is this the same DH team the cllctv?
  • 3 0
 They try to keep up with Commencal.
  • 1 0
 In DH the other riders are on Commencals
  • 3 1
 An argument could be made that this is their only XC Race Team with a female rider. Doesn't matter how bright the colours are in a paint job racing in the back rows, this one will be way more visible!
  • 2 0
 @jspier: Nope, they have the Canyon MTB Racing (Emily Batty and Laurie Arseneault) and Alpecin-Fenix with two strong young riders, Ronja Eibl and Puck Pieterse. But I agree on the "visibility" thing, Loana should be in front of them.
  • 1 0
 @oxentiel: Fair point - I forgot Pieterse and Eibl were on Canyons (and they both had great seasons, with even more promise), but I'm still not sure what the realistic goal is for the Canyon MTB Racing program. Kind of the opposite side of Geoff Kabush's recent editorial.
  • 3 0
 @oxentiel: )and Ceylin.
  • 1 0
 @jspier: ouch
  • 1 0
 Emily Batty will need to have a strong season to keep her place in the team. Lecomte is so fast!
  • 10 0
 Emily is on another team. She is just the marketing campaign for Canyons North America launch.
  • 1 0
 After riding last race season without a dropper, I wonder how long she will go before dropping the the axis from her set up.
  • 2 0
 Smart move
  • 2 1
 Canyon is taking Specializeds approach on Protour teams to the Mtb scene.
  • 1 0
 Canyon also supply bikes to 4 road teams: Alpecin Fenix (Mens and Womens), Movistar (Mens and Womens), Canyon SRAM (Womens), and Arkea-Samsic (Mens).
I believe specialised supply 4 too: Quickstep, Direct Energy, Bora, and SD-Worx.
  • 1 0
 I love and respect her, but damn that looks just like a bad photoshop.
  • 1 0
 extending the dropper the seat might hit her chin
  • 1 0
 Omg! How big is her head!!!
  • 1 0
 "hihihiih"
  • 1 1
 Gotta be careful with letter drops in CRoSsCoUnTrY
  • 3 5
 Front tyre better aligned with rim than rear tyre.

@deanw Looks like she has a dropper as you hoped.
  • 2 0
 Only for the top text. Bottom text is better aligned on the rear. O well, who bloody cares anyway. Just ride ya bike
  • 1 0
 She's going to rip that dropper out of there!!
  • 1 1
 Are those slicks?!!!
  • 1 2
 Is an Arsenault a bit like an Astronaut??? #IGotsTaKnow
  • 1 1
 SendHer
  • 1 0
 Cute for a bobblehead...
  • 1 0
 @curendero: That is weird
  • 3 5
 Looks like a Session....
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