LIDL-TREK

Lidl–Trek, sponsored by the coffee company Segafredo between 2016 and 2023, is the latest incarnation of the RadioShack and Leopard teams, created in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Both of them rode Trek bicycles but failed to achieve the desired results, apart from winning the team classification in 2010 and 2012 and the flashes of brilliance of Fabian Cancellara and the Schleck brothers.

While the two Luxembourgers went into decline after standing on the podium of the 2011 Tour, the Swiss rider remained a bankable asset, taking the inaugural time trial for the fifth time in 2012 (after 2004, 2007, 2009 and 2010) and wearing the yellow jersey throughout the opening week.

In 2014, Andy Schleck's hopes were dashed for good as he dropped out in the fourth stage with his knee so badly injured that he had to bring his career to a premature end at age 29. The next day, Cancellara, the favourite to win the cobblestone stage, had to settle for fifth place.

One of the big assets of the American squad was Jens Voigt, who completed his final Tour at age 43 amid an outpouring of affection. The team signed Bauke Mollema to make up for its lack of results. In 2016, the Dutchman, seventh in 2015 in his first year with Trek, was still second in the general classification the day after the stage 18 time trial in Megève, but he faltered in the last two mountain stages and ended up in eleventh place overall.

He finally claimed a solo win in Le Puy-en-Velay in 2017, halfway between the Alps and the Pyrenees, in the same season that the team run by Luca Guercilena recruited Alberto Contador. Already in the twilight of his career, the Spaniard realised that at age 34 he was no longer good enough to fight for the yellow jersey (ninth, 8′49″ back), but he went out with a bang, claiming the Angliru stage in the Vuelta.

Trek Bikes, used to having household names such as Armstrong, Cancellara, the Schleck Bros., Voigt, Ivan Basso and Contador on its roster, signed Richie Porte, who finished eleventh in the 2019 Tour de France after two massive disappointments. While still racing for BMC, the Australian had suffered horrific crashes in stage 9 both in 2017 and in 2018, the latter on the same day that Trek–Segafredo's John Degenkolb, tears running down his cheeks, culminated a sensational comeback with a poignant win in Roubaix Velodrome.

Vincenzo Nibali was the latest in a long line of high-profile veterans signed by the American outfit. Giulio Ciccone showed the way with a two-day stint in yellow in 2019, but the long-awaited success only came in 2020, when the 35-year-old Richie Porte finished third overall.

Bauke Mollema's triumph in Quillan in 2021 and Mads Pedersen's victories in Saint-Étienne in 2022 and Limoges in 2023 kept the flame burning. Giulio Ciccone put the icing on the cake by taking the polka-dot jersey last year. Ahead of the Grand Départ in Florence, he remains the last Italian rider to have worn the yellow, white and polka-dot jerseys.