CCC-Liv finalizes roster for 2021 with addition of Alison Jackson
Liv Racing, currently CCC-Liv, has finalized their 2021 roster with the addition of Alison Jackson, who joins the team after one year with Team Sunweb. Alongside Jackson, Lars Boom will join the World Tour team full time as the sports director.
Boom first started out with CCC-Liv this summer when he signed on as part of the performance team ahead of the first-ever women’s Paris-Roubaix. CCC-Liv is to become Liv Cycling in 2021, according to the list hoping to hold World Tour status next season.
Jeron Blijlevens will no longer be working with the team after his nine-year role as sports director.
One of the first teams to face an uncertain future after the season was abruptly shut down in early March was the CCC men’s team. Staff and salary cuts filled the news along with questions regarding the long term future of the team. The women’s team was thrown into the headlines purely because CCC was a co-title sponsor of the team. What was not widely known at the time was that the men’s and women’s teams were separate entities with the same look. The women’s team was in far less danger of ceasing operations, that is until Jumbo-Visma announced their addition of a women’s World Tour team headlined by Marianne Vos, the veteran and top rider at CCC-Liv.
With Vos leaving the team speculation of the team’s future ran rampant, but in early October CCC-Liv announced the addition of Lotte Kopecky for 2021. Kopecky had an incredible run in 2020, not only pulling off a 2nd and 3rd on stages of the Giro Rosa but taking an exciting victory on stage seven. Eleven days later Kopecky became the 2020 Belgian National Road Champion, to match her ITT won in August. She finished out the year with a 4th at Brabantse Pijl, 3rd at the Tour of Flanders and AG Driedaagse Brugge-De Panne, and a second-place at Gent-Wevelgem.
Following Kopecky’s announcement, there was a news-dry spell until the team announced the addition of Jackson and contract renewals for the rest of their 2021 squad. Soraya Paladin, Sabrina Stultiens, Pauliena Rooijakkers, Sofia Bertizzolo, Jeanne Korevaar, and Evy Kuijpers will make up the full Liv Cycling team next year.
All three of CCC-Liv’s World Tour victories this season were by Marianne Vos at the Giro Rosa. Vos was also second in the sprint finish finish of La Course by the Tour de France to Lizzie Deignan, in the top 10 finishes of any race in 2020.
With this news about the team’s full roster comes a sigh of relief that the team will remain in the peloton as a fighting force in 2021. One of the original powerhouse squads, CCC-Liv began as Team DSB-Ballast Nedam in 2006 (with Vos on the roster) which later became the Rabobank women’s team in 2021, home to Annemiek van Vleuten, Iris Slappendel, and Lauren Kitchen. When Rabobank ceased to exist in 2017 the team became WM3 Energie, then WaowDeals, and finally CCC-Liv for the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Next season will be the dawning of a new day for Liv Cycling. Marianne Vos has been with the team since its formation in 2006 and for the first time will be racing against her home of 14 years. Lars Boom is an excellent sports director for a team of exciting riders like Liv Cycling has fielded, and Alison Jackson will be a key addition for the team in sprints and rouleur-type races.
The featured image of Alison Jackson at Gent – Wevelgem was taken by Tim van Wichelen.
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