40 World Tour and ProTeam riders remains without a contract - What will the future of Froome, Lazkano and others look like?

On the 26th of January, you'd expect there to be a clean sheet of riders who are continuing their career into 2026, and those who are not. However, not everything is either black or white, as a few riders remain in the grey zone. More specifically, 40 of them, as is publicly known. A few World Tour and ProTeam riders have not announced their retirement from the sport or the road, but also do not have a standing contract at the time being.

At World Tour level, this list has thinned down, but still includes 14 riders. This includes Oier Lazkano, who is provisionally suspended by the UCI due to biological passport abnormalities; a decision has not been made, and on paper, it is possible to sign him - and potentially, if he is cleared, have a strong rider under contract at some point in the future. Lazkano is the most prominent name on this list, without a doubt.

Ruben Guerreiro is perhaps the most prominent of the riders who have not been involved in such a case. But the Portuguese rider suffers from lingering health issues, most notably a back hernia, which prevents him from training or racing at a high level. But the climber, former winner of the Giro d'Italia KOM jersey, has admitted that he is working on returning to his best health and afterwards make the push to return to the World Tour.

Sam Gaze is focusing once again on his Mountain Biking career almost exclusively, whilst Gerben Kuypers, formerly of Intermarché - Wanty, has now been signed with Pauwels Sauzen - Altez and is potentially returning to a full-time cyclocross schedule.

That does still leave 12 riders on the list, however, including a few very young riders. The absence in the social media bubble may be the reason why some of these riders have not announced their retirement, but at the same time, it is quite possible that most, if not all, have not decided to hang up the wheels, and could be part of the amateur circuit or gravel racing ahead of a return to professional road cycling. Andrea Pasqualon, Julien Vermote, Antonio Pedrero, Matthew Walls, Filip Maciejuk, Kevin Colleoni, Juri Hollmann, Antoine Huby, Welay Hagos Berh, Campbell Stewart, Anton Palzer, and Eddy le Huitouze are still in this situation.

At ProTeam level, there is a clear elephant in the room, which is Chris Froome. The four-time Tour de France winner has been rather absent from competition since his crash at the 2019 Criterium du Dauphiné, and the last half of his five-year contract with Israel - Premier Tech proved to be at a deficit for the now-defunct team. Froome suffered another serious crash last fall, which ended his season prematurely and led to several fractures, which have provisionally led to his retirement. It seems to be a certainty, but no announcement has been made.

23 other riders follow him in this current status, which includes the also provisionally suspended Giovanni Carboni, previously of Unibet Rose Rockets; Jaarne van de Paar and Logan Currie of Lotto, who underwent a merger with Intermarché - Wanty; former World Tour riders such as Abner Gonzalez, Floris de Tier and Jon Aberasturi; and four-time Swedish national champion Lucas Eriksson.