Cofidis concludes their new signings with a bet on future with a pair of promising French amateurs

Team Cofidis was almost unusually extremely active on this year's transfer market. Nine new faces will wear the iconic red-white jerseys with star signings of Dylan Teuns, Alex Aranburu and Emanuel Buchmann who are to replace departures of Guillaume Martin and Axel Zingle.

But you can't have the team progress without talented youngsters and Cofidis believes they have found just that in their last two additions who are both going to debut at the UCI-level and they'll be thrown in the river to learn to swim at the WorldTour level right away.

Sam Maisonobe (2003) only debuted on road last year while he still combined cycling with his passions - triathlon and duathlon. This year, he joined the feeder team of TotalEnergies - Vendeé U - and quickly proved that he has a bright future ahead on road. The young Frenchman already turned heads with an impressive top-20 finish at the U23 Liege-Bastogne-Liege but it was his stage victory at the Ronde de l'Isard that proved he desrves an extra attention. Later in the season, he's also won a stage at the Vuelta a Madrid U23 and finally took two stages and overall victory at the exotic Tour de la Guadeloupe (2.2).

"Signing with Cofidis is first of all a relief because it allows you to have visibility over the next two years. It is the beginning of a new adventure, a door that opens onto a new world that I have to understand," the youngster knows he still has to learn a lot about racing in the peloton.

Also the other new face in Cofidis has roots outside of road cycling. Clement Izquierdo (2002) spent the majority of his career with mountain bikes, only slowly turning his attention to road last year. The Frenchman's decision to fully focus on road in this season paid off dividends as the 22-year-old quickly established himself among the top cyclists at the local scene, winning a stage at the Tour de la Mirabelle (2.2) with endless streak of top-10 results. Most recently, the all-rounder raced fearlessly in the mountains of Tour de l'Avenir, coming close to a breakaway victory.

"I am very happy to see that my first year on the road is so fruitful. When my agent told me that I was going to sign with Cofidis, I was super happy!" Izquierdo sounded really excited to make a WorldTour debut. "I started at 7 years old with mountain biking and I climbed the ladder. I stopped last year because I wanted to move to the road and be able to live off cycling. I am still discovering myself, I am constantly trying to push my limits."