Cyclist
Pro cycling transfer rumours 2024/2025: Yates, Longo Borghini and O’Connor considering moves
It’s all kicking off in the 2025 pro cycling transfer market. We’re now knee-deep in Grand Tour season and there are plenty of rumours swirling around the peloton surrounding riders’ future moves.
As is now customary in transfer dynamics, external rider transfers cannot be publicly announced until 1st August, with the exception of neo-pro signings or in-house transfers from development teams. That doesn’t stop the rumour mill though – rumours are spinning long before the watershed opening to the transfer market.
For the men, the biggest names on the market this year are Julian Alaphilippe, Jai Hindley, Simon Yates and Stefan Küng. For the women, World Champion Lotte Kopecky has already extended with SD Worx while the Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering faces a new round of contract negotiations. Elsewhere, Lizzie Deignan, Juliette Labous and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot are all out of contract.
All change at Jayco AlUla: Yates out and O’Connor in
After a disappointing 2024 so far, Simon Yates is expected to leave Jayco AlUla at the end of the season. This will mark the end of a decade-long collaboration between the two that has seen Yates claim a Vuelta a España victory and a Giro d’Italia podium.
Despite previous interest from Israel-Premier Tech, Dutch squad Visma-Lease a Bike currently leads the charge in the hunt for Yates’ signature. The team of Jonas Vingegaard offers a GC powerhouse for Yates. Much like his brother, he will be hoping to star in a confident mountain train set for Tour de France success.
Perhaps Simon is hoping for similar fortunes as his brother who slipped onto the podium of the 2023 Tour de France in a luxury domestique role. That said, Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reported that Yates was interested in a leadership-focussed role at the Dutch team. What this means for the Tour de France next year, we are still to find out.
In a quest to strengthen its grip on the Classics, Visma-Lease a Bike is closing in on deals with both Alex Zingle and Victor Campanaerts. The latter made his time-trialling breakthrough with the team over five years ago. A return looks inevitable.
Jayco AlUla looks set to replace Simon Yates with Perth-born Ben O’Connor. High in confidence from a fourth-place finish at the Giro in May, O’Connor will lead Jayco-AlUla’s Tour de France hopes for the seasons to come. The rumour is very strong and considered a ‘done deal’ by some sources. Despite his Australian nationality, O’Connor has never ridden for the GreenEdge project.
O’Connor’s exit from the French team comes after a breakthrough Tour from teammate Felix Gall last summer. Furthermore, Gall penned a two-year contract extension earlier this year. O’Connor was offered Giro leadership at Decathlon-AG2R in favour of another Tour de France captaincy during the winter. The recent series of Netflix’s Tour de France: Unchained also unearthed some turbulence in the relationship between the Australian and the team’s staff. O’Connor has been contracted to AG2R since the beginning of 2021. During that time, he has claimed a stage win and a top five at the Tour de France.
The many wings of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
After a big rebrand and budget increase ahead of the 2024 Tour de France, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have been making their big ambitions in the 2025 transfer market known.
Kaden Groves has been a breakout star at Alpecin-Deceuninck. The Australian secured a green jersey and three stage wins at the Vuelta during his time with the Belgian squad. Groves has also proved his worth as a top-tier sprinter within the team’s highly competitive sprinting setup. That said, he is still to feature at the Tour de France.
In 2025, Groves is expected to move across to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, joining his compatriot Sam Welsford in the team’s sprinting core. Both riders will look to return Ralf Denk’s team to its sprinting pedigree of old, repeating the feats of Sam Bennett, Pascal Ackermann and Peter Sagan before them.
With growing GC ambitions, these interests could be hard to balance. As previously reported, Classics revelations Oier Lazkano and Laurence Pithie will bolster the team’s sprinting and lead-out hopes.
Adding another character to Red Bull’s lineup, Guilio Pelizzari has been linked to the team. The 20-year-old VF Group-Bardiani rider from the underrepresented Marche region of Italy broke through at the Giro d’Italia this year, almost claiming a career-defining win on Stage 16 before being swamped by Tadej Pogačar.
Not quite a future talent, but seasoned Slovenian Jan Tratnik has also been rumoured to move to the team from Visma-Lease a Bike in 2025. Winner of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad earlier this year, Tratnik would relish the opportunity to reunite with countryman and close friend Primož Roglič.
Another Lidl-Trek shopping spree
Lidl-Trek were the most active team in the 2023/24 transfer window after the team had a budget increase courtesy of its new Lidl sponsorship. The American team added plenty of heavy hitters to its roster including Giro maglia ciclamino winner Jonathan Milan and 2020 Giro d’Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart.
For 2025, the team are looking add some stage-winning talents to its ranks. These include two-time Tour stage winner Søren Kragh Andersen and Grand Tour breakaway threat Lennard Kämna – both of whom rode for Team Sunweb before big moves in the early 2020s.
Kämna has proved in recent years that he is one of the most talented riders in an escape group. The German was reinvigorated at Bora, claiming a stage win at the Tour, Giro and Vuelta in the space of three years and playing a key part in teammate Jai Hindley’s Giro victory in 2022. The German proved his GC pedigree at the 2023 Giro, securing a top ten in the final rankings.
Kragh Andersen moved to Alpecin-Deceuninck at the beginning of 2023. Since then, he has been a reliable component of the their Classics lineup, playing a crucial role in Mathieu van der Poel’s 2023 win at Milan-San Remo. At Lidl-Trek, he will be expected to link up with compatriot Mads Pedersen and Milan-San Remo alumni Jasper Stuyven.
Elisa Longo Borghini to UAE Team ADQ
A stalwart of Lidl-Trek’s dominance in the women’s peloton, Elisa Longo Borghini is set to leave the American squad at the end of 2024. This will see the end of a five-year-long stint with the team that has carried her to Paris-Roubaix and Ronde van Vlaanderen glory.
The Italian’s departure was confirmed after the Vuelta Femenina by Lidl-Trek team manager Luca Guercilena in Italian newspaper Gazzetta Dello Sport. Guercilena also confirmed that Lidl-Trek tried to extend the contract of the Italian national champion, but she has decided that her future lies elsewhere.
The destination has emerged to be UAE Team ADQ. The team currently includes riders such as Silvia Persico and Karlijn Swinkels for support. The roster is not as deep as Lidl-Trek’s, so Longo Borghini will likely have to rely on her own expertise at her new destination.
At her former team Lidl-Trek, Gaia Realini will now assume the GC leader position after having extended her contract until 2027.
French hopes and Evenepoel’s domestiques
Guillaume Martin is set to leave Cofidis according to Wallonian source Le Soir.
The rider – who is also a published author of philosophy-cum-cycling allegory Socrates by Bike – reportedly received offers from Arkéa, former team Intermarché and Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale. It appears however that Groupama-FDJ lead the fight for the Frenchman’s 2025 contract.
He looks to be replacing Lenny Martinez, who will leave Groupama-FDJ at the end of 2024. His destination looks set to be Bahrain Victorious. RMC Sport claims that Martinez has already signed a deal worth €800,000, a sum four times larger than his current package.
In terms of other French talents, Giro d’Italia stage winner Valentin Paret-Peintre looks set to move to Soudal-QuickStep. He will leave his older brother Aurélien at Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale in favour of supporting Remco Evenepoel’s GC hopes.
Evenepoel’s current domestiques Fausto Masnada and Jan Hirt are reported to be on the move for 2025. The former, a podium finisher at Il Lombardia, will move to the Swiss-South African Continental squad Q36.5, while Hirt, a top ten finisher at the Giro on two occasions, will head to Israel-Premier Tech.
Demi Vollering to leave SD Worx
In March, GCN broke the news that Demi Vollering will be leaving SD Worx-Protime at the end of 2024. After a partnership that has resulted in Classics victories and a Tour de France Femmes title, the Dutch champion will go elsewhere for 2025. Undoubtedly the biggest name in the women’s market this year, there is a fierce and exclusive battle for the current yellow jersey holder.
Sources disclose that Vollering’s agent was in serious talks with Lidl-Trek up until the Tour of Flanders when the American team pulled back their interest in support of their current roster’s future objectives.
FDJ-Suez remain a strong contender, but the viability of this rumour is up in the air as the team lays eyes on other objectives. Elsewhere, UAE Team ADQ have fallen out of the mix.
Vollering, who according to sources has been offered a €1 million per year contract, is running out of options if she wants to remain adamant about a move away from SD Worx. We wait with bated breath to see who enters the ring as Vollering’s future home.
Ferrand-Prévot sees an end to Ineos’s women’s team
After a unique stint as Ineos Grenadiers’ one-woman show, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot looks set to join Visma-Lease a Bike on a three-year deal. Ferrand-Prévot will join multi-discipline riders including Fem van Empel and Marianne Vos. This is important to recognise given Ferrand-Prévot’s exploits in mountain biking and cyclocross, although it is believed the current MTB XCO and XCC World Champion will be returning to road racing.
With the exit of Ferrand-Prévot, the future of Ineos’s women’s project looks to be coming to an end. She was the only rider involved after all.
Reinforcements at Canyon-SRAM
German team Canyon-SRAM is devising a plan for the future, according to Daniel Benson. In support of Polish star Kasia Niewiadoma, the squad has made in-roads during the 2025 transfer market.
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig looks set to make the jump from FDJ-Suez to Canyon-SRAM for 2025. The potential arrival of Demi Vollering and the current rise of French woman Évita Muzic threaten Uttrup Ludwig’s niche within the team. The Dane has delivered some big results for FDJ-Suez, including a stage of the Tour de France Femmes and the Tour of Scandinavia GC.
Chiara Consonni, already a stage winner at the Giro d’Italia Women, is also linked to Canyon-SRAM. This means that Consonni will exit UAE Team ADQ before the signing of Elisa Longo Borghini comes into effect. Italian Consonni is a strong sprinter, which would Canyon-SRAM a more structured approach on flat stages.
Subtle handshakes and uncertain futures
On the men’s side, some big names have already been taken out of the rumour mill machine courtesy of contract extensions. Despite early season uncertainty, Jasper Philipsen has extended with Alpecin-Deceuninck until 2028. In the GC field, Mattias Skjelmose will stay at Lidl until 2026. Alexey Lutsenko, the Kazakh leader of Astana, has also been rumoured with a surprise exit to Israel-Premier Tech at the end of the season, which might be a hint that the team’s sponsorship is changing.
Ineos Grenadiers have extended the contract of Dutch climber Thymen Arensman until 2027 while they are claimed to be eyeing up Bob Jungels from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Ethan Hayter, the newly crowned British champion, could leave Ineos at the end of the year.
For the women, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes have penned hefty contract extensions until 2028.
Curious where the money for these big contracts comes from? Brush up our breakdown of all the WorldTour team sponsors
The post Pro cycling transfer rumours 2024/2025: Yates, Longo Borghini and O’Connor considering moves appeared first on Cyclist.