Wout Poels "ninety percent certain" to retire at the end of season, but before wants to ride the Tour one more time

Wout Poels is a rider who in his career finished 6th overall at La Vuelta (twice), won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and played a key part in multiple Grand Tour victories of his team. However, for what could turn out to be his final professional season, the 38-year-old signed up for a project which doesn't aim as high. Understandably so, given its limited resources.

"You can see it especially in the organization. You can't really compare WorldTeams and ProTeams. It's all a bit smaller," says Poels in front of the WielerFlits camera.

For the former rider of Team Sky, Bahrain, or Astana, a move to Unibet Rose Rockets was a conscious decision. "I want to enjoy cycling for another year and ride smaller races where I can still achieve good results. Then this came my way. I think it's a good match."

Although Unibet Rose Rockets competes only in the second cycling division, the team has a good chance of going to the Tour de France this summer. With 11 Grande Boucle participations under his belt, Poels could then taken on the mentor role as well as that of a leader one more time. "If we ride the Tour, it would of course be fantastic to do it one more time. But if not, I can also really enjoy smaller races, like the Tour de Hongrie or the Tour of Turkey. I simply find those races really fun to do. And I can still compete for the win there," he analyzes realistically.

When Poels signed with the Rockets, he thought a Grand Tour was out of the question. "But pretty soon after, it turned out we had a good chance of riding the Tour. And yes, you really want to go there again. What challenge would I face there? You naturally want to try to win a stage again. That's very difficult in the Tour, of course, but we're going for it," said the climber, who added a Tour stage to his palmares three years ago.

Whether it happens at the Tour or not, Poels has the ambition to win at least one race in 2026. "That's more for my own statistics, because I've won a race with every team. That seems like a nice challenge to me." In 2025, he brought Astana a stage and overall victory at the before mentioned Tour of Turkey.

The project of Unibet Rose Rockets only launched in 2023, but rapidly gained in strength as well as popularity, moving up the ranks to Pro division after a single season. With a team built on overlooked continental and ex-pro riders, Unibet quickly gained recognition of bigger teams, allowing them to strengthen massively during the past transfer window. All of a sudden, they're among the 5 strongest teams in Pro division. At least on the paper. And so the Tour de France dream lives on.

For Poels this is a "great project" where he can share his experience. Regarding passing on experience, he could also potentially do so in a different role with the Rockets in the future. The Limburg native is "ninety percent certain" that he will retire after this season.

"One of the conditions for the transfer was that I might be able to do something for the team after this year. We don't know what yet. And I have to figure out exactly what I want, just like the team. But there are possibilities," said Poels, who will move back to the Netherlands in 2026 after living in Monaco for years. "It's nice to be close to everyone again, especially family and friends."