At just 20, Alex’s life has already taken unexpected turns. She once thought her life path would focus on engineering and had the opportunity to study it at university. Instead, she decided to follow her dream and become a professional bike racer.

Alex has always been an athlete. She was an avid speed skater growing up in Calgary and found track cycling when she was looking for a summer sport to complement skating. She loved that both sports demanded so much of her, but once she realized that she could train and race on the road and not be stuck on an oval all the time, she was hooked on road racing. Growing up so close to the Rocky Mountains, Alex also took up mountain biking and cyclocross.

As a junior, she was third at the Ronde van Vlaanderen Juniors, won the Canadian junior crit national title, and went back-to-back as the Canadian junior road champion.

In 2025, her first season as a pro, Alex showed her dedication to both her teammates and to her development. She won the bunch sprint at the Canadian road race national championship to finish in second place. When Alex had some time off from racing last summer, she went to Belgium to compete in a series of crits and road races to further hone her skills. The work has clearly paid off, with Alex winning both the Canadian U23 time trial national title and the U23 road race championship in 2026.

From Harvard to venture capital to double Olympic Gold, Kristen Faulkner’s path has been anything but conventional. But one thing is a constant – her rigorous pursuit of excellence.

Before she became a cyclist, the double Olympic gold medalist and back-to-back US road race champion earned her bachelor’s degree in computer science at Harvard, where she competed on the university rowing team. She finished second in the world junior rowing championships, before moving to New York City to pursue her career with a venture capital firm.

She missed team sports, so she went to a women’s introductory cycling clinic in Central Park. She enjoyed that enough to do a race and once she experienced how much strategy and tactical thinking cycling required, she knew it was the sport for her.

The 33-year-old has always dreamed big. Ever since she was a little girl, Kristen wanted to compete in the Olympic Games.

Her childhood in Homer, Alaska helped her develop a sense of resiliency. Kristen’s parents run a restaurant and hotel in her hometown and she has been always inspired by their work ethic. That work ethic, combined with her Olympic dream, inspired her to take up a new discipline, the team pursuit in track cycling in 2024, alongside road racing.

She sees bike racing as a game of chess, where strategy, patience, and anticipating a competitor’s move make the sport demanding and thrilling. On the streets of Paris, she rode a smart, tactical race, biding her time on the circuit up and around Montmartre, before making a big effort to close to the leaders with just over three kilometers to go. Knowing that her rivals at the front of the race might hesitate in the hope that the other would chase, Kristen attacked and rode solo to the finish under the Eiffel Tower to win her first Olympic gold medal.

With hard work and intelligence, she had made her childhood dream come true. She celebrated with her family and then turned her attention back to the track and her pursuit of excellence. A few days later, Kristen won her second Olympic gold medal with her teammates in the team pursuit.

Since joining EF Education-Oatly, Kristen has earned wins at Omloop van het Hageland, two stages at Trofeo Ponente in Rosa where she also claimed the points and mountains jerseys, a stage at the Vuelta España Femenina, and the US road race national championship two years in a row. Her 2025 season was cut short due to a shoulder injury which only means Kristen is that much more excited for the 2026 season.

At her European base in Girona, Spain, Kristen likes to grocery shop at the local farmers markets, letting fresh produce inspire her in the kitchen. She loves creating healthy, vegetable-based dishes. A lifelong learner, she always has a couple of books on the go and you’ll usually find her reading on the transfers between stages.

Magdeleine soloing to victory at the 2025 world championships in Rwanda may have been a surprise for some people, but not to Mags’ teammates and loved ones. The consummate teammate, she has proven herself in the mountains in big stage races like the Vuelta a España Femenina, the Giro d’Italia Women, and the Tour de France Femmes, and one-day races like Strade Biance and Amstel Gold. Her enthusiasm for cycling drives her.

She was about eight years old when she learned to ride a bike without training wheels. That Christmas, she got a new bike and the following summer her dad took her on a nine-day, 1,000 kilometer bikepacking trip. She credits her dad – and that trip – with creating her passion for cycling that has guided her life ever since.

It led her to her first pro win in 2024, when she won the Trofeo Palma Femina in Mallorca. It later led her to her rainbow jersey, which she won at the world championships in Kigali.

Growing up in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Magdeleine rode with her local club. She raced mountain bikes, cyclocross, and road bikes as a teenager. She also learned how to track stand and to this day cannot resist the urge to track stand when she waits at red lights. As much as she loved racing in Québec, Magdeleine soon realized that if she wanted to continue to compete and grow as a rider, she needed to go to Europe. She earned a spot with the UCI’s World Cycling Center program where she spent two seasons soaking up every opportunity she encountered before she turned pro.

This year is Magdeleine’s fifth as a professional racer. Don’t take your eyes off her for a moment.

With three sisters in the peloton and two former elite athletes for parents, Mirre Knaven grew up in an active household. The first sport she was involved in was gymnastics but when her oldest sister decided to swap gymnastics for cycling, then seven-year-old Mirre followed and she hasn’t looked back since.

Though she’s raced mountain bikes and cyclocross, road cycling is what really captured her heart. She still enjoys doing a handful of cyclocross races in the off season just to mix things up, but she is happiest spending her winters escaping the Belgian weather and heading to sunny Mallorca.

Mirre is still developing and discovering her strengths at this early stage in her career. She joined our team mid-way through the 2024 season after earning her first professional victory. The joy she felt that day stemmed from the perseverance and grit she used to take that win. She lives for the classics season when both of her all-time favorite races – Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix – happen. She dreams of winning one (or both!) of these monuments one day.

The passion and dedication that she pours into cycling, she also devotes to music. She’s been a drummer since she was a child, taught herself the piano during Covid, and started playing guitar a couple of years ago. If she weren’t a full-time athlete, Mirre would be a musician.

At just 24 years old, Nina is only getting warmed up. Now in her fourth season as a pro racer, she is a budding classics rider and she loves a hard day of racing in challenging weather conditions. Nina loves to race aggressively and relishes a chance to spend the day in the break.

This is her second year with EF Education-Oatly and Nina has shown time and again that she is a valuable teammate, always ready to take one more pull to help position her team leader and armed with a witty observation to share at the dinner table.

Nina has many fond memories of spending the summer with her family in their camper van as they followed the men’s edition of the Tour de France. That’s where she first got the idea to ride - she wondered how fast she could make it up the same iconic climbs she visited while watching the Tour. Now, it’s Nina’s turn to race up the climbs at the grand tours and inspire the next generation.

Her ideal vacation is anything to keep her outdoors and active. She adores hiking, backpacking, and bikepacking. Nina is currently in her second year of studying for her bachelor’s degree in psychology, so vacation time is admittedly limited these days!

Stina joins EF Education-Oatly as the current time trial champion of Sweden. With two additional time trial victories in her palmarès, Stina wants to continue to strengthen her talents against the clock while also developing her abilities in the cobbled classics.

She got her racing start as a mountain biker and only participated in road racing when her mountain bike program began to field a road racing team. Stina has always thrived on strength and support from her large family and the experience of racing as a team felt the same to her. It wasn’t long before the Swede left mountain biking to dedicate herself to the road.

When she’s at home, Stina loves to spend time with her family. She and her three siblings live with their parents and their dog so the house is always bustling with energy. Stina enjoys cooking and getting her family’s feedback on new recipes. To relax, Stina goes for walks in the forest or swims in the lake near her home.

This season, Stina’s main goal is to continue to grow. The 20-year-old has been riding since she was just three years old and every year, she seeks to learn and develop, knowing that consistent, small improvements can lead to big results.