After his incredible victory at the Mountain Bike Cross Country World Championships in September and being crowned the overall winner of the 2024 Cross Country World Cup, Alan Hatherly is hot property and Team Jayco AlUla are delighted to announce that the South African has signed a two-year contract with the team.

The 28-year-old wants to focus on the road and will ride both mountain bike and road races in 2025 - a transition that few riders have managed.

The newly crowned mountain bike world champion has had an outstanding off-road season and was the first African and non-European rider to win a bronze medal in this discipline at the Olympic Games.

Having focused most of his career on mountain biking, Hatherly clearly has a big engine and GreenEDGE Cycling is excited to have the opportunity to sign the talented rider and is excited to see what he can achieve on the road in a professional WorldTeam environment at the highest level.

In addition to his impressive list of successes on the mountain bike, Hatherly has previous road racing experience and can count a second place at the South African Time Trial Championships among his results in national races.

"I am incredibly excited for this new chapter in my cycling career and am very grateful for the opportunity to ride for GreenEDGE Cycling for the next two seasons. I think now is the perfect moment for me to get out of my comfort zone and continue to develop. Moving to a WorldTour road team is obviously something completely new for me, it will be a steep learning curve and I will learn from the best. The combination of road and mountain biking is new and refreshing, and I'm really looking forward to where the journey can take me," says Alan Hatherly.

Brent Copeland, General Manager of the team adds: "Alan has clearly had a breakthrough season in the mountain bike discipline and is showing that he has much more to give. We are thrilled to be working with such a talented rider and believe that our strong support network within the WorldTeam set-up is something that will benefit Hatherly greatly. We hope we can achieve great things together as he will certainly have many experienced teammates and staff to learn from."

greenedgecycling.com