16/08/2024

Wout Poels seems to be another big name heading to Astana Qazaqstan for next season

The frantic search for 2025 reinforcements at Astana Qazaqstan continues with another big name in the professional peloton linked to a move to the Kazakh WorldTour team.

It appears that the 36-year-old Wout Poels has found the motivation to continue his career with Astana Qazaqstan, Daniel Benson informs.

"It was complete chaos today... UCI cannot continue with this radio ban" - Visma CEO Richard Plugge furious at UCI's experiment

Astana is currently lacking in... well... pretty much all areas and thus the arrival of a strong climber such as Poels is more than welcome. It'd be out of place to expect Poels to suddenly finish top-10 at a Grand Tour or go on a winning streak in week-long stage races, but his consistent contribution by "always being up there" could prove vital for Astana's hopes to at least secure an automatic wildcard for WT events in 2026. Realistically speaking, saving the WorldTour license with their current deficit is very much a wishful thinking...

Poels can be rightfully considered as one of the veterans of peloton as he would enter his seventeenth season among pros next year. The Dutch rider turned professional with Vacansoleil in 2009 and when the Dutch formation folded five years later, he briefly joined forces with Patrick Lefevere's Omega Pharma - Quick Step in 2014 before spending five years as part of Team Sky's iconic mountain train, present to four Tour de France overall victories of the British team during his stay.

Johan Bruyneel calls David Lappartient out and describes Tour de Pologne race radio ban as 'simply criminal'

At the end of 2019, Poels still felt the motivation to pursue his own results, choosing to make a move to Bahrain - Victorious. Highlights of his stay in the Bahrain-licensed team are 6th place overall at Vuelta in 2020 and then stage victories at Tour and Vuelta last year.

This season was a bit of up and down for the experienced Dutchman. His start to 2024 wasn't bad, but things didn't click at his favourite Ardennes classics and his participation at Tour de France was marked by an illness that didn't allow Poels to be competitive for the first two weeks. An 8th place from a breakaway on stage 17 is not much to write home about, but with Tadej Pogacar sweeping all remaining mountain stages, there wasn't much else to be done for Poels.