“Why is this team so special? Because people care about each other.” GreenEDGE Admin and Finance Manager Elsa Lepore smiles as she talks about her long adventure in with the team that began 13 years ago.
An Australian from Perth, Elsa discovered the world of cycling together with her sister, Lynette. This journey which started with her sister, would soon become much more than anything she could have imagined at the beginning.
“I started in para-cycling with my sister Lynette who is blind, and she rode on the back of a tandem with a sighted pilot. I started following the Paralympic team as a volunteer in the administration and logistics areas, and then the Australian Cycling Federation made my role a part-time position in the office in Adelaide,” she said. “After a short time, I was asked to also look after the administration and logistics of the road race programs for our men and women cyclists.”
In the summer of 2007 came the turning point for Lepore. Shayne Bannan, who was the high-performance manager of Cycling Australia at the time, asked her if she was available to move to Italy to support a group of young Australian talent at their base in Castronno, a few kilometres from Varese.
“It was a wonderful experience. They were young men and women far from home and family but with a big dream to become professional cyclists. There were good days and bad days, but we all worked together with the same goal”, Lepore explained.
Supporting Australia’s future stars
Some of those young people, such as Luke Durbridge, Michael Hepburn, Michael Matthews, Jess Allen are still part of the GreenEDGE team, while others like Amanda Spratt, the brothers Cameron and Travis Meyer, and Damien Howson would all play a major role in the team before moving on elsewhere.
“They are all special to me and it is a great satisfaction to be able to see that they have achieved their goals,” Lepore said. “Now they have become adults, some have married and have children”.
“I have many memories of those years, and one in particular was with Michael Matthews, who was always very sociable, and he liked to sing and dance with the help of a karaoke machine. With Michael’s U23 team mechanic sleeping in the apartment below him, I had to remind him that if his mechanic didn’t get enough sleep, he might not be able to do a great job on his bike, so Michael obligingly made sure that the karaoke machine was put to bed earlier each night.”
At the end of 2011, work to create Australia’s first-ever WorldTour team was well underway. The GreenEDGE team would debut in 2012 and Lepore was called on to collaborate on the exciting new project. “There was a lot to do but it was really very engaging. We were Australia’s first professional cycling team, and that made us all very proud,” she said.
Since that moment, many victories have come, including Simon Yates’ general classification victory at the Vuelta a España in 2018, two Giro d’Italia Donne wins with Annemiek van Vleuten, plus multiple Monument and Grand Tour stage wins with both our men and the women’s teams. There were also stints in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France (in 2013 and 2020) and the Giro d’Italia pink jersey (in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018) for our men’s team.
Growing with the team
Since the team started back in 2012, it has grown considerably and Lepore now has to look after the admin and finance for a lot more people. Between its men’s and women’s rosters and the staff behind the scenes, GreenEDGE consists of more than 150 members.
“Before I got into cycling, I worked in a bank. Mathematics and finance are my specialties, plus I like things that balance,” she said. “We can compare ourselves to a medium-sized company now, and when you see the team that we were at the start, it is difficult to comprehend just how much hard work and commitment has gone into getting us to where we are now.”
The team’s Service Course is operational seven days a week and takes care of many things: from logistics to vehicles, bikes & equipment to nutrition and clothing of athletes and staff. Then, there is the whole administrative and financial aspect. This is where Lepore comes in, along with a few more colleagues. Budget, payments, and cash flow go together with daily administration. “Initially I only dealt with the administrative and basic finance aspects of team operations, but since the new General Manager, Brent Copeland arrived, I started to also deal with more complex budget & financial matters, which I enjoy.”
While the responsibilities have increased over the years, Elsa has retained the enthusiasm that she had in the early days. “Without passion you cannot do this job which often has no timetable. I continue to feel part of a big family and for this I have to thank [team owner] Gerry Ryan who is the head of our very large family.”
After more than 15 years in Italy, Elsa decided to leave Europe earlier this year and has returned home to Australia, from where she continues to work for the team. “I felt it was time to return to Australia because I wanted to be with my family and friends more, and I am very happy to still be able to be involved with our team”, she says, “but I will particularly miss the people who worked with me at the Service Course, who I saw almost every day” she said.
Thanks Elsa!
