According to TV2 Sport, former professional athlete Lars Bak will lead the creation of a new women's team that will compete directly in the UCI Women's World Tour under the flag of Norway's Uno-X for 2022.

Bak retired after 18 seasons as a professional, spending seven seasons with Lotto Sørdal before finishing her career with Dimension Data.

Dane was named general manager of the new women's team, which will hire players and staff in 2021.

"They are committed to having one of the best teams in women's cycling," Bak told TV2 Sport. "[I am responsible for] preparing a project to operate as a large team in the Women's World Tour starting in 2022."

Bak told TV2 Sport.

Bak was contacted by current Uno-X men's team manager Jens Hauglund for the project and said he would use his connections in pro cycling to find the best staff and riders and that he had to build the best team possible

"I was honored and excited to be contacted by Jens. It's something very new for me, and it's as much management as it is cycling. It's a challenge I can't refuse. It's going to be very exciting and a great opportunity."

Although she has no experience in the women's peloton, Bak said she will work hard to learn the ropes and has received good financial support from Uno-X. She says, "I want to put on the best show possible, female or male. That's what I was hired for. That's the challenge. And obviously I'm a cyclist and I only have experience being hired by a men's team. But I've talked to people who have already worked for the women's team, and it's still about winning bike races and training hard.

"It has to be a top professional team and they have to have a really good team, so they will have some money. They have a lot of capital and they are full time guys, so everything has to be professional, just like the men's team."

Bak expects the team to be based in Belgium along with the men's professional team to facilitate travel.

Uno-X will be the newest major women's team to be created after the formation of the Jumbo-Visma team, scheduled to debut in 2021 with Marianne Vos at the helm. The team will be incorporated into the current Parkhotel Valkenburg team structure and will race as a continental team in 2021, as UCI rules prohibit teams from immediately joining the Women's World Tour.

Team Sunweb, Trek-Segafredo, Movistar Team, Lotto Soudal, and Mitchelton Scott are among the men's teams that have added women's teams in recent years.

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