AR Monex Women's Pro Cycling takes over Astana women's team license

The AR Monex Women’s Pro Cycling Team is taking over the UCI license held by the Astana women’s pro cycling team since 2015.

The new women’s squad will have an Italian registration and will be based in Veneto, Italy.

The Astana women’s team had been registered in Kazakhstan since 2015, however with the withdrawal of the title sponsor, the license became available and the team’s sport director took the opportunity to create a new team.

The 2021 roster includes 13 women from seven different nations, including Cuban Arlenis Sierra who won stage 1 of the 2020 Women’s Herald Sun Tour. She also took wins at the 2019 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and the overall at the 2019 Giro Toscana Internazionale Femminile.

In a team statement, director Maurizio Fabretto said he immediately went to work on a three-year plan which also includes a men’s U23 Continental road team, and forming an international mountain bike team. The three teams will share names, colors, technical sponsors, and operational resources.

“I am really proud to be able to launch this new project,” Fabretto said. “Because it is just what we needed to get back on track immediately with new motivations.”

The AR Program Cycling Team is a previously established mountain bike team based in Mexico and has the backing of Monexis, an international monetary products and services provider that includes monetary products and services, foreign currency, international transactions, payments, deposits, and more.

“I am seeing nothing prevents us from dreaming of the WorldTour or the Women,” Fabretto continued. “We are convinced that we have strengthened it a lot: we have kept the ones that have done best in the last season and we have added several important elements.”

Fabretto indicated that the team would announce a full roster in the near future.