Head Coach Julie Carter has announced the addition of Johanna Gref to the cycling program for spring 2021.  The Krefeld, Germany native brings experience in the track and road disciplines to the team.
 

Gref began riding in 2010 when she bought a bike from her brother who was a racer.  After winning her first 1. Schritt Rennen, a race where every child can participate without having a license, she began to focus on cycling seriously, to the point that she quit another interest, cheerleading.  She joined a new local cycling club, the VfR Büttgen 1912 e.V., and started racing road in 2012 and track in 2013. 
 
Gref won several state championships in those disciplines from 2012 to 2020.  She finished third at the 2019 German Championships in the Team Pursuit, and took sixth in a National League Road race the same year, but she lists one of her biggest highlights as being pictured in the portrait book "Die Welt hat Pedale und Freunde die sie treten" by Rainer Kraus and Rudolf A. Blaha.  She was pictured in the book next to famous riders like Tony Martin, Miriam Welte, and Andre Greipel.

Gref has also been a member of the Radsportteam Bockum local club, the Landeskader Nordrhein-Westfalen, the team of the state Northrhine Westfalia, the Bundesliga Team Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen (national league), and the Nationalkader 2 (national team).
 
Gref lists her favorite athlete as Peter Sagan.  "He shows you that you don't need to take everything too serious to be successful and I need someone to remind me of that," she said. 
 
In addition to cycling, she is also really into music and loves to sing.  She relaxes by drawing or being creative and she loves the drama "Faust - Der Tragödie erster Teil" written by Johann Wolfgang Goethe.  She arrives as a freshman and plans to study Sports Science at Lindenwood.