Takelast week
Realini to leave Lidl-Trek at the end of 2026
Lidl-Trek and Gaia Realini have agreed to part ways at the end of 2026, a year before her contract was due to expire. The team calls it a mutual decision after "open and constructive conversations"
What this means
Realini leaves without a confirmed destination for 2027, and Lidl-Trek has now lost three women's riders for next season while bringing in Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and four others.
Realini broke through in 2023 and 2024 with overall podiums at both the Vuelta Femenina and the Giro Donne, a stage win at the Vuelta, and fifth overall on her Tour de France Femmes debut. A fractured elbow in training early in 2025 disrupted her season, and she failed to finish in the top 15 of any race that year. 2026 brought no turnaround — eighth and 12th on the Vuelta's key climbing stages, 10th overall at the Faun Tour Femmes, 14th at the Giro dell'Emilia Donne. The "mutual decision" language and Realini's own statement about growth and emotions frame this as an amicable split, but a rider with a contract through 2027 walking away a year early, after two quiet seasons, reads as a team moving on from a breakout that didn't hold.
Sources
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