After six years in the saddle, Ecuadorian cyclist Jhonatan Narvaez will be leaving Ineos to join Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team, the Tour de France winner’s team revealed on Thursday.
With a gold medal in the Pan American Championships road race in 2023 and two stage wins in the Giro d’Italia in 2020 and 2024, the 27-year-old puncheur has won 11 professional races.
“Since the beginning of my career I’ve always wanted to be involved at the highest level of cycling and we can say that UAE Team Emirates is the best team in the world in the last years so it’s an honour to be moving there,” said Narvaez, who is in his sixth season with Ineos Cycling Team.
“I feel I’ve taken big steps at Ineos but I think I still have margin to take another step in the coming years.”
Two further deals involving the departure of Frenchman Axel Zingle and Australian Ben O’Connor were revealed on Thursday, the day the transfer window began.
After four seasons, O’Connor, who finished fourth in the Tour de France in 2021, is leaving Decathlon-AG2R to join the Jayco-AlUla team and head back to Australia.
O’Connor, 28, stated in a release, “It’s an idea I have always loved, to race as an Aussie and win on an Aussie team.”
Zingle has, meantime, agreed to a minimum two-year contract with Visma-Lease a bike, the team that Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard, the two-time Tour de France winners, lead.
The 25-year-old cyclist departs from the Cofidis squad, which has also announced the addition of Belgian Dylan Teuns. Visma called the rider “a great talent for the classics.”
Be the first to comment