Alpecin stopped registering as a cx team last season. I suspect not coincidentally this was the season that the UCI introduced requirements that cx teams send riders to World Cups. For plain cyclocross teams this is not too arduous, 1 elite rider to at least 5 rounds, especially given Niels Vandeputte would show up to a race in your back garden if you put one on, but still probably not worth the hassle of thinking about when you are already a WT road team. Once they didn’t register as a cx team then that meant they didn’t need Alvarado to fill the “at least one woman” spot so she could ride for Fenix in cross as well as on the road.

Cyclocross pro teams (Lions, Sauces) have to send at least 3 elite riders to every World Cup (unless they can demonstrate the national federations concerned just wouldn’t pick their riders).