"They didn't care about having me as a rider... Certainly didn't feel supported" - Departing Samuele Battistella hits out at unprofessional Astana

After four seasons in the iconic blue of the Astana Qazaqstan Team, Samuela Battistella departs for a new challenge in 2025, joining EF Education-EasyPost on a two year deal. As the Italian explains himself though, it's far from a respectful parting of ways between rider and team.

"I'm sad to leave because after a long time I felt at home," the 25-year-old former under 23 world champion assesses in an open and honest interview with Bici Pro. "What I will take with me to EF is the awareness that in the World Tour, without planning the activity well you don't go anywhere. You can't do the races without working well and that's what I feel I've done in 2023 and 2024."

As mentioned though, things didn't end of the best of terms between Battistella and Astana with the Italian criticising his former team's lack of professionalism once finding out he was set to depart. "When we spoke, I didn't hide the fact that I had already signed with the new team, I wanted to be honest with them," he explains. "I remained professional and a serious professional to the end. Even when I broke my collarbone at the end of the season I didn't give up. On the contrary, I trained hard to recover. On the team side, I don't feel like I've had the same treatment."

"I felt like they didn't care about having me as a rider anymore, the relationship had changed," continues the former Veneto Classic winner. "I can understand, but being excluded a week or so from the Tour de France hurt me. I got sick at the Tour de Suisse and I didn't ride the last stage, even with the doctor's advice. I saw an attitude from the team that I didn't like, as if I were unreliable since I get sick often, in their way of saying."

"I certainly didn't feel supported and involved as before. In December I wasn't supposed to do the Tour, then yes given the performances in spring, and finally still nothing due to a fever at the Tour de Suisse," Battistella concludes. "We will never know how it would have gone. Maybe the first week I would have struggled more, but then I think I would have returned to my levels. Also because I had worked so hard, I was with the team for 23 days in Sierra Nevada. I had never been so many days at altitude. All the work was lost, because then in July there are no races. So I stopped because I would never have maintained my condition until the end of the season. At the moment in which I was returning to my values ​​I broke my collarbone."