Eglantine Rayer

Fresh out of the juniors, 2023 sees the talkative and personable Eglantine make the step up to the WorldTour level off the back of two strong seasons where she took several big results including the European championships, three French titles, plus a silver medal at the World Championships.

Eglantine doesn’t hail from a cycling family as such though, with her grandfather more of a hobby cyclist. Between the age of two and six Eglantine did some classical dancing before taking up running and then eventually cycling.

Her journey into cycling is an interesting one with her brother partaking in the sport and Eglantine following their training in the car; before she then joined the training too. A few months later, her brother’s club wanted to join a competition, but they needed at least one girl to enter so in stepped Eglantine with a “sure I can do that” attitude, getting her licence for one day. She had so much fun that at the end of the day she ran over to her parents and said, “I can do that more often, if you like!”. The rest as they say is history with Eglantine getting her full racing license at the age of 12 and not looking back since.

Not daunted by the big jump from juniors to the elite level, Eglantine sees it as a big opportunity where she wants to experience the biggest emotions in sport and take part in the races that you see on TV – and she will truly be “living the dream.”

Part of a growing French contingent in the team, Eglantine will join Juliette [Labous] and Léa [Curinier] within the Women’s program. Finding that home away from home will help to add some comfort for Eglantine, who has already been in contact with Juliette since the start of 2022, soaking in all the information possible and learning about her experiences.

With a wise and mature head on her shoulders that belies her young age, Eglantine is also a very reflective person who describes herself as someone who is energetic and a perfectionist. The latter she says is a bit of a “good and bad thing”, as she always wants to give 100 percent to everything which has helped her to get to where she is, but it also means that she sometimes struggles if she’s not the best. Nonetheless, that’s something Eglantine has been working on and she’s seen a lot of improvements in herself because of it.

Away from the bike, Eglantine has a passion for psychology and had thought about completing a degree in it but with the current way schools operate in France; it’s not possible to combine it with her full-time life as a cyclist, as the schools aren’t so flexible with course dates and hours. It’s something she won’t count out though and will maybe take up in the future.

Like most young teenagers, the chatty Eglantine enjoys socialising with friends and family when she’s not on the bike or honing her baking skills in the kitchen – with cookies and muffins her favourite sweet treats. Rather amusingly, Eglantine’s hidden talent is that she’s a very efficient fridge organiser – so all those tasty goodies will be as fresh and arranged as possible!