Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig: “better make it count now before it is all finished”
+ Stephen Delcourt wants to make SD Worx - Protime “go nuts”
Hello lovely subscribers! ✨
Something a little bit different for you today! This morning I joined a press conference with FDJ - SUEZ, including Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Grace Brown, Évita Muzic, Vittoria Guazzini, Marta Cavalli, Léa Curinier, and team manager Stephen Delcourt. After listening to what they had to say I got the sense – particularly from Uttrup Ludwig and Delcourt – that the team are going into 2024 with renewed energy.
The word energy is of course synonymous with the Danish rider but, sat in a conference room at the Suez headquarters in Paris, Uttrup Ludwig displayed less of the effusive and excitable vim that she exudes in TV interviews and instead carried a muted excitement, seeming thoughtful and pragmatic about what lies ahead for her in 2024.
The 28-year-old took a different approach to the start of her season than in previous years; spending six weeks in Australia including, for the first time, racing Tour Down Under where she won the second stage. “It feels very good. It was a good way to start the season. For me it was a bit different to start the season so early in January in Australia, but it was very refreshing and very good. I spent six weeks there, so it was a good block in good weather. And yes just good times with the team and I'm just also so excited for the season.”
Having been pigeon-holed as a pure climber and GC contender in the earlier part of her career, Uttrup Ludwig has shifted towards more of a punchy, Ardennes-style rider capable of taking wins by executing gutsy, aggressive moves. With some of the former expectation and pressure taken off her shoulders by Muzic and Cavalli, Uttrup Ludwig has been able to hone in on her goals and race with more freedom which has paid off with a Tour de France stage win as well as stages of her home race, the Tour of Scandinavia in recent years.
“I'm often there, say top five or top-10, but to get that win is something different and that is what we are always searching,” she says. “But it would be really nice to get that win and not... top fives are nice and top 10s are really nice, but it's just to get that win is different and it's something that I will be hunting this season.”