Italian Martina Fidanza was seen as "a perfect fit" for Visma-Lease a Bike and signed the young sprinter to a two-year contract. Fidanza has spent the past three seasons with Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling and will move to the Dutch Women's WorldTour squad to start 2025.
The 24-year-old won back-to-back stages at Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour this season, holding off seasoned veterans like Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek), Barbara Guarischi (SD Worx-Protime) and Tiffany Cromwell (Cayon-SRAM) in bunch sprints. She also had three podiums in one-day races in late spring, including a win at the GP Mazda Schelkens.
Fidanza is a proven winner on the track, having won junior World titles for Italy in Team Pursuit and Scratch races, and has two elite women's World titles in Scratch and one in Team Pursuit.
"Martina has already achieved some good results. We believe that we can develop her into a sprinter capable of competing with the best in the WorldTour. We carefully analyzed where we needed reinforcements within the team in the short term, and Martina was the perfect fit," said Rutger Tijssen, team manager, in a press release. "The plan is for her to form our sprinting duo with Nienke (Veenhoven) next season."
Veenhoven is a 20-year-old Dutch sprinter who joined the Visma team in 2023 and showcased her speed at the Women's Down Under Criterium with a victory plus several top-5s at one-day races including Egmont Cycling Race and Konvert Koerse.
Fidanza said she wanted to develop with the powerhouse team for more frequent trips to the podium, but also learn from experienced, multi-discipline teammates, in particular Marianne Vos, who will ride a fifth year with Visma in 2025, and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who transitions from a mountain bike focus back to a full road programme next year.
"This is a dream come true. I am super proud to be part of Team Visma-Lease a Bike next season because I consider it one of the best teams in the world. In addition, I greatly admire the team’s approach," Fidanza said in a Visma-Lease a Bike statement.
"With Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, I will be racing with two great champions. I expect to learn a lot from them and I want to give them the best possible support in races. Furthermore, I want to show over the next two seasons that I deserve to be part of this team.
"I hope I get to celebrate many more wins in the coming seasons, but my ultimate goal is to win a WorldTour race."
In her first season at Ceratizit-WNT in 2022, the young Italian was part of three Women's WorldTour events, completing her first Giro d'Italia Donne after two other appearances, and had a strong finish with ninth on the final stage in Padova. In 2023 she came close to that WorldTour victory, finishing second on stage 2 and third on stage 3 at Tour of Chongming Island.
Her older sister, Arianna Fidanza, currently rides for the Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling team, but does not have a contract for 2025.
