Moreno Hofland has signed for EF Education First – Drapac p/b Cannondale, the team have announced. The Dutch rider joins from Lotto Soudal where he has spent the past two seasons.
“I’m really looking forward to riding for an international team,” said Hofland. “I like to explore myself through learning, and there’s no better way to learn than through differences. I’m the only Dutch guy on my current team, which is mainly Belgian, and that can be isolating sometime. I think it’s really cool to have Danes, Italians, Spanish, Colombians, Australians, Dutch and, of course, Americans working together. This will be new for me, and I always like to try new things.”
The 26-year-old has won two stages of the Tour of Utah, a stage at the Tour of Yorkshire and three stages and the overall at Tour of Hainan. Amongst his 13 victories, he considers a stage win at Paris-Nice in 2014 his proudest achievement.
“I’ve raced the Giro d’Italia three times, and in my first try, I came second on a stage,” said Hofland. “I’m also proud of that. My biggest dream is to win a stage in a Grand Tour.”
“I was expecting to do more racing for myself in my current team, but I ended up mostly helping out my teammates,” said Hofland. “I want to work for Sebastian [Langeveld] and Sep [Vanmarcke] in the Classics, but I also hope I can try for my own chances again. I have a talent for sprinting, and I wasn’t able to show it these last two years.”
“Moreno is a guy that showed great promise and won a lot of bike races early in his career and then moved into the role of being a lead-out rider for Greipel,” said Slipstream Sports CEO Jonathan Vaughters. “He lost a little bit of his killer instinct when he was taken out of that sprinter role. We’re going to put him back in that role and help him achieve results for himself.”
“I started with swimming, but in the end, when I was 14, it became boring to me,” said Hofland. “It was always the same thing in the pool. My dad is a cyclist, and he was still racing his bike then. I saw this every day. He took me one time to train at the local club, and I immediately fell in love. The sprinting, the chasing, the winning. It was so much fun. My brother got involved, too, and it became a thing to do together as a family.
“I’m the same rider as my dad a little bit,” Hofland added. “It was nice to see what he achieved and see possibilities for myself. He was not a pro but a well-respected amateur in Holland. My main goal when I was a kid was to be better than him.”
Now Hofland strives to be better than himself.
“I want to improve every day,” he said. “My ambitions for next season are to get back into sprinting again and to win races. My biggest goal for 2019 is to win a WorldTour race, and, of course, with the Classics team we have, I want to be there with Sep and Sebastian. I want to help them win a big one.”
