Team DSM 2023 Team Launch

With the start of the 2023 racing calendar just around the corner and preparations for the year well underway for several months, Team DSM held their Team Launch this afternoon in Calpe; reflecting on the recent campaign but also outlining their plans and ambitions for the year ahead and all which that entails.

Building on strong foundations with DSM

2022 marked the second year with DSM as the team’s title partner, building on a long-established relationship that has flourished since its beginning in 2015.

A partnership built on the concept of co-innovation, DSM provide Team DSM with cutting-edge products which help the team across four main pillars of performance: focus, endurance, resilience, and recovery. In return, Team DSM is the ultimate stress test for the nutritional innovations with their athletes competing at the highest of levels and to the limit of human abilities. The team’s feedback and data can then help shape the future of nutrition, not only for cyclists and sportspeople but also help to find solutions to improve the health of everyone around the world.

This collaboration between Team DSM and DSM, plus the team’s sports nutrition partner Sanas, has seen the implementation of a variety of innovative ingredients into sports nutrition products that the riders use every day. These include CanolaPro in a vegan protein bar to help recovery, HiMO Blend 5 which aids their immune system, PeptoPro which helps endurance during rides and Life’s OMEGA which is a sustainable fish-oil that benefits brain, heart, and eye health.

Looking ahead, Team DSM and DSM will continue to push the concept of personalised and customised nutrition, bringing together the latest science and technologies both in data and in new nutritional ingredients, elevating the team’s athletes to the next level and building on their successful partnership.

Plans for 2023 and beyond

2023 marks a new sportive opportunity and the team look to continue building across all three programs.

Speaking about the plans for the upcoming season, Team DSM head coach Rudi Kemna said: “A new season with new opportunities is always really motivating, and we have had a great preparatory period across all three of our programs on our winter Team Camps.

Looking to our Men’s program, we’ll continue to build with our three blocks of Classics, GC and Sprint Train groups; and we have a lot of exciting young talents who work and race alongside our more experienced riders. Looking to the classics, we will race with varied tactics and an open approach to get the best result possible and continue to build our sprint train in the fast finishes in stage races.

The Giro d’Italia will see us hunt stages with a strong group with the likes of Patrick [Bevin] and Andreas [Leknessund], and at the Tour de France we will focus on GC with Romain [Bardet] as our spearhead.

Our Women’s program had an incredible 2022 campaign, and we hope for more success in 2023. We will continue to build on our sprint train with the emergence of Charlotte [Kool] as a top contender in those fast finales. Last season also saw our GC group take a step forward with Juliette [Labous] claiming her first Women’s WorldTour GC win plus an extremely promising fourth at the Tour de France Femmes and winning the queen mountain stage of the Giro Donne. We’ll look to build on that at the three Grand Tours – Vuelta, Giro and Tour – this season. We have several exceptional talents joining us who’ve already brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the group, so we’re looking forward to the opportunities that lie ahead of us.

We’ve now promoted 18 riders from our Development program to our Men’s program and that’s something we’re incredibly proud of as a team, and it motivates all of us to see these guys make that step. We want to continue that trend, focusing on the basics and building strong foundations as they make their transition out of the junior ranks; gaining experience in U23 and continental level races, but also riding alongside our Men’s program when possible.”

Breaking the mould with continued innovation advancements

Revolutionising the concept of race eyewear, 2022 saw the science and ideas of Team DSM’s experts on how race eyewear should look and perform brought to life in the form of DRIIVE – a new premium race eyewear brand developed jointly by Team DSM and their strategic partner Nexeye. With the goal of setting a new standard for athletes that compete at the highest level, the striking race eyewear is also available for the broader public to purchase and use too, with it placed in Hans Anders and eyes + more optic chains in various countries throughout Europe as well as online.

This year has also seen Team DSM continue with their pioneering approach to athletic race wear, producing purpose-made, performance-driven products in cooperation with the team’s partner Nalini at their state-of-the-art MOA Lab. This has seen a new and fast version of the high-performance aero sprint suit with integrated protective fibers developed and used, which combines the performance necessity of aerodynamics and speed, with improved safety and protection in case of a crash, thanks to the implementation of Dyneema fibers in brand new developed panels. Team DSM and Nalini further develop this concept with their shared expertise, bringing it to the next level.

Additional independent anti-doping efforts continue

Since 2007, Team DSM has worked to the intensified ethical standards of the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) and 2023 will be no different with the team extending its membership. Furthermore, the team continue their additional independent anti-doping program, with the help of the National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO) of the Netherlands and the Doping Authority Netherlands, as both Team DSM and DSM further commit to clean sport and fair governance.

A fresh online home

Heading into the new season Team DSM have refreshed the look and feel of their online domain, with a new appearance and set up to their team-dsm.com home.

Aiming to bring more exciting and engaging content to fans, an easily navigable hub for all things Team DSM, and an improved base for both partners and media – head to the website and have a look around and familiarise yourself with everything.