Filippo Ganna is preparing to close an eight-year spell with Ineos a season ahead of schedule, choosing Lidl-Trek as the setting for the next phase of a career that has moved between the track’s biggest evenings and the road’s most demanding races.
Key takeaways
- Ganna will leave Netcompany-Ineos before the final year of his contract and join Lidl-Trek through 2029.
- The 30-year-old Piedmontese rider has represented the British-based team since 2019.
- At Lidl-Trek, he will be reunited with Italian Olympic track teammates Jonathan Milan and Simone Consonni.
- Three members of Italy’s gold-medal-winning Tokyo 2021 pursuit quartet will be on Lidl-Trek’s roster next season.
- Ganna, Milan and Consonni are due to compete at the Track World Championships in Shanghai from tomorrow.
A new team for Ganna’s road ambitions
The agreement with Lidl-Trek brings an early conclusion to Ganna’s time at Ineos, where he has ridden since 2019. His new deal is set to last until 2029 and has been described as a three-year arrangement.
Ganna said the prospect of joining Lidl-Trek had given him fresh motivation after so many years with his present team. He is looking forward to the first training camp and wants to begin the coming season in the strongest possible condition.
The Italian also pointed to the Classics as a central target. “I have ambitious aims and I hope to achieve them with Lidl-Trek, especially in the Classics,” he said. “With the team we will have, there should be no limits.”
Grand Tours will remain part of his programme, with Ganna underlining that he wants to work for the squad while also taking the opportunities that arise for him personally.
The Italian track connection in Shanghai
Lidl-Trek will acquire more than a leading time trial specialist and a rider with major championship experience. Ganna’s arrival strengthens an Italian core already featuring Milan and Consonni, turning next season’s team into the home of three-fourths of the quartet that won Olympic gold for Italy in Tokyo.
Before that reunion becomes a daily reality on the road, the three riders are set to be in Shanghai for the Track World Championships. Ganna and Milan will compete there together, while Consonni’s focus will be on bunch-race events rather than the team pursuit quartet.
For Ganna, the move gives a new club context to objectives that remain broad: the cobbled and one-day races, the Grand Tours, and the track commitments that have long shaped his calendar. The change is not merely a contract decision, but the beginning of a different sporting chapter alongside familiar Italian colleagues.
