Elisa Longo Borghini justifies her move to UAE Team ADQ - "If I had to choose between Lidl-Trek and UAE only for the money, I would have stayed"

Despite overly successful six years with Lidl-Trek, Elisa Longo Borghini made an unexpected decision to change colours for 2025, joining the growing counterpart of the most successful male team of 2024 - the UAE Team ADQ. The 32-year-old still has many goals left to conquer in her career, but above all looks forward to a completely new challenge.

"I'm pretty sure that most people would say 'she's gone there for money' which is not true," Longo Borghini asserts in an interview with Rouleur. "But I let them talk, because it's always nice when people are talking, and you can laugh because it’s not correct. To be fair, if I had to choose between Lidl-Trek and UAE only for the money, I would have stayed [at Lidl-Trek]. But for me, it's a young team, it's a rising team, they are ambitious, and they meet my character. I really like the idea of helping women to embrace the sport and to get more involved in sports in general."

"I think, to be honest, this will probably be the last four years of my career, because we are humans, we can't be bike racers forever," she continues. "I wanted to have an extra life and personal experience in my career and that was the main thing. I'm sad to leave a place that basically grew me into the rider I am and where I always felt home. But there were some reasons why I needed to go, and one of these was the fact that I wanted a new experience in a new environment."

"After six years in the same place, you want to also see what's next door and it feels like year zero now, because everything is new," she smiles. "The bike is new, all the equipment is new. You’re trying different things. It's like being at the first day of school again."