Vlasov, Chaves, Hindley, Almeida and Soler join Sagan in moving teams for 2022
Bora-Hansgrohe undergoes a sea change for next season
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Sirotti
The first week of the transfer season began on August 1, but it took some time for the moves in the WorldTour to gather momentum. But over the past six days there have been several significant riders joining Peter Sagan in making moves.
In late July Bora-Hansgrohe announced that Peter Sagan and Pascal Ackermann weren’t returning to the squad next year. Sagan surprised some by signing with ProTeam TotalEnergies, and he brought brother Juraj, Daniel Oss and Matiej Bodnar with him.
Bora is undergoing a sea change, with five fellows leaving and, so far, eight riders joining. Loading up on stage racers, the German team signed Sergio Higuita from EF Education-Nippo, 2020 Giro d’Italia runner-up Jai Hindley from DSM, and Astana-Premier Tech’s fourth place rider from the 2021 Giro, Alexandr Vlasov.
Ackermann, who unfortunately crashed out of Monday’s first stage of the Tour of Poland, found employment with UAE-Emirates, a team that is splashing around the money lately, having spent 30 million Euros on double Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar, keeping the Slovenian until 2027. UAE gave contracts to João Almeida, fourth and sixth in the last two Giros, and Marc Soler, who might find his new team’s tactics less perplexing than those of Movistar.
EF Education-Nippo switched Colombian stage racers: Higuita for Esteban Chaves of BikeExchange. Chaves has been with the Australian outfit for eight years. His peak season was 2016 when he came runner-up in the Giro, third in the Vuelta a España and first in Il Lombardia. Thirteenth in July’s Tour de France was his best Grand Tour since 11th in the 2017 Vuelta.
Sagan and Ackermann remind us that it hasn’t been just stage racers on the move. Despite Patrick Lefevere’s ugly metaphor, Irish sprinter Sam Bennett returned to Bora. Another fastman leaving Deceuninck-Quick Step is Colombian Álvaro José Hodeg, who was runner-up in Monday’s Tour of Poland stage; he’ll join Ackermann at UAE-Emirates. Like Bennett, John Degenkolb returns to an old team, swapping Lotto-Soudal for Team DSM. Norway’s Alexander Kristoff, who has Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem on his palmares, hooks up with Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux next season.
