EF Education-EasyPost staff shake-up continues - Veteran sports director leaves team after 15 years as former key figure returns

EF Education-Easypost are undergoing an off-season of change on the bike as they say goodbye to leader Richard Carapaz, but the American team are also going through a staff shake-up in the team car ahead of the 2027 season.

Jonathan Vaguthers' squad will be without long-time sports director Charly Wegelius after 15 seasons behind the peloton with the team. Joining the team in 2012 following his retirement, the team thanked the Briton in a social media post.

The news comes as EF confirmed the arrival of Matt White this week, welcoming the experienced Australian sports director to the fold and bringing close to two decades of experience to their support staff.

White was announced recently to be leaving Movistar after a season at the helm, and just 18 months after his dramatic Jayco AlUla exit - a team he had spent more than a decade working with.

White began his sports director career with the team in 2008 and returns with a renewed motivation to get the best out of EF's riders after Carapaz's exit was compounded by other high-profile exits such as Michael Valgren, Madis Mikhels, Georg Steinhauser and Markel Beloki.

The team have brought in reinforcements in the form of Tao Geoghegan Hart, Emil Herzog, Ivan Sosa and Nicholas Milesi among others, but Vaughters himself has admitted that the team are operating on a constricted budget in 2027.

"It feels like coming full circle. I started my career as a sports director here back in 2008. I've obviously spent a lot of time away, but it's a team that I've always kept very close to my heart," White said.

"It's exciting to come back to a team that has so many talented young riders and a lot of ambition to develop this group over a long period of time."

White inherits a young team with several young or up-and-coming riders with the target of stage wins at the biggest races on the calendar.

"The most exciting thing about this group is that it's such a young, talented team. You just don't know what these athletes are capable of on any given day," he said.

"Nurturing those guys and getting the best out of them, both as individuals and as a group, is an exciting challenge for me. Working with riders who don't yet know where their ceiling is, and helping them discover what they're capable of, is something that gets me up in the morning."

He added: "My passion is getting the most out of people. Cycling has changed a lot, but there's one thing that hasn't changed: you're dealing with human beings. Getting the most out of people is something I really enjoy. I think if, in 12 months' time, we can sit back and look at the season and see that we've featured prominently throughout the year, especially at the pointy end of the races that matter, then that's a measure of success.