Over 100 pro riders out of contract and still on the market for 2023

The calendar is soon to tick over into December, and any last off-season enjoyment is shortly to be replaced by preparations for 2023 - but some riders have no plans in place for next season. 

This year, there is once again a long list of riders who are without a contract and without a team at this deep stage in the winter. 

The global pandemic skewed the transfer market for a couple of years and left swathes of talented riders scrambling for cover. Now, economic and and political instabilities have created a similar situation. 

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There are 28 riders currently at WorldTour level who are still unsure of their future. With upwards of 75 riders from ProTeams also without contracts, there are more than 100 pro riders on the market, with a month to spare until 2023 contracts start taking effect.

Here, we run through the names, the teams, and the factors at play.

Mark Cavendish

The most successful sprinter of all time is facing uncertainty over his career and that all-important question of whether he can take the outright record of Tour de France stage wins. 

Mark Cavendish has been set to sign with the B&B Hotels team since the summer. The problem is, the team's future is way up in the air. A string of major sponsors have been rumoured but as of today there is no money to run the expanded project that team boss Jérôme Pineau dreams of, and not even enough money to be sure of continuing at all. 

Cavendish is understood to have agreed to join the team but has not signed a formal contract. Until Pineau gets his prospective sponsors across the line - and convincing them that the 34-time Tour stage winner is on board is fundamental to that - then he can't put that piece of paper in front of Cavendish. There should be a resolution soon, one way or the other, with Pineau having missed two deadlines to register his team but negotiating a third, which is Wednesday, November 30. 

Cavendish is waiting patiently, if anxiously, knowing this represents his best chance of a top contract for 2023 - perhaps the last of his career. It's no secret that his salary when QuickStep picked him up off the scrapheap in 2021 was a shadow of what it once was, and having returned to the top of the sprinting game in such spectacular fashion, he hired a new agent this spring to redress the imbalance. If Pineau pulls through, all will be in place, and rider and team can be all-but assured of an invitation to the Tour. If not, Cavendish would surely still have options but, in December when many teams are already accounted for if not already full, perhaps not the upper hand at the negotiating table. There'll be some WorldTour managers awaiting news and sensing a possible bargain. 

Cavendish isn't the only rider waiting patiently on the B&B doorstep. Max Richeze, the veteran lead-out man headhunted by Cavendish, is set to extend his career if the team goes ahead. The Argentine was nearly forced to retire this time last year but eventually bagged himself a temporary half-year extension at UAE, and is now a free agent again. 

Cees Bol, another sprinter who can also ride the Classics, is supposed to be headed for B&B from Team DSM, as is another lead-out man in Ramon Sinkeldam, who shone for Arnaud Démare at Groupama-FDJ this year. Stephen Williams, who's back on track after his first seasons were wrecked by injury, is leaving Bahrain Victorious and has been linked, as has Nick Schultz, the 28-year-old Australian who has spent the past four seasons at BikeExchange-Jayco. 

Nairo Quintana

The Colombian is another hugely decorated rider without any firm plans for 2023, having split from his Arkéa-Samsic team in the wake of his positive tests for tramadol. 

Nairo Quintana had agreed to extend with the French second-division team he joined in 2020 but never signed the final contract and the two parties decided to go their separate ways even before the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld his sanctions. 

The former Giro and Vuelta winner has since been sending out a string of bizarre messages when asked about his future by media back in his native Colombia. In almost the same breath he said he already has a team sorted for next year, then said he is 'looking at the options'. 

He entertained the idea that his former team, Movistar, were one of those options, even though, leaving all their complicated history aside, the Spanish team already has the maximum 30 riders signed up for 2023. Over to EF Education-EasyPost, and Jonathan Vaughters publicly came out to say they're also full. Bahrain Victorious have also denied the links. Is there anyone left? Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert are yet another team seemingly randomly rumoured, and their director Aike Visbeek made a Cristiano Ronaldo comparison in shutting it down, proof that this has become comedy material. 

Quintana has since insisted once again he's sorted for next year but can't say yet who it is. He has turned down a rather public advance from the Colombian Medellin-EPM team, claiming he'll be racing at the highest level in 2023. It's hard to see him being picked up by a WorldTour team at this point, and it would have to be another ProTeam with decent access to WorldTour races. But even that seems complicated for a rider who's used to being well paid and who - even if it wasn't, strictly speaking, a doping case - has an association with a banned substance. 

Quintana's departure also means the end of his Colombian clique at Arkéa, with his brother Dayer Quintana and long-time teammate Winner Anacona also without homes for 2023.

Domenico Pozzovivo

The Italian's body has taken an absolute battering over the course of his career and his must have suffered the same in the past couple of years as well. Pozzovivo finds himself in a depressingly familiar position to last year, wanting to continue his career but without many options to do so. 

Last winter, he was one of the riders uprooted when the Qhubeka team folded, with a contract in place but suddenly no team to ride for. Only in February did he end up at Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert. 

Pozzovivo may turn 40 tomorrow but he proved this season that he's still competitive, with top-10s at the Giro d'Italia - the seventh of his career - and the Tour de Suisse. There was an early exit at the Vuelta a España but he bounced back at the Italian Classics with 5th at Coppa Agostoni, 3rd at Giro dell'Emilia, 8th at Tre Valli Varesine, before another crash took him out of Il Lombardia in what was, he said, one of his "best days".

Pozzovivo would like to extend with Intermarché, and they do have a space, but so far a new deal has not been forthcoming.

"There are some discussions with some teams, but my priority remains to renew with Intermarché," he told SpazioCiclismo. "My main request is to be able to tackle the Grand Tours and also the big classics."

Other big names out of contract

Like Pozzovivo, Jan Bakelants has not been kept on by Intermarché, the team he joined as a second-division squad in 2020 before spending the past two seasons with them at WorldTour level. The former Tour de France stage winner reacted angrily to his non-renewal, calling the reasoning "ridiculous", from a director (Aike Visbeek) who he claims he helped set up with a job. "Somehow you should keep in mind: 'he has done a lot for us and all in all he has not cost us much,'" Bakelants told Het Nieuwsblad recently. "With many people you would get some goodwill for that, apparently not here." 

Either way, the 36-year-old, who has previously raced for AG2R, Sunweb, QuickStep, Lotto, and Radioshack, is on the lookout for one more year before he ends his career.

While the list of WorldTour riders without contracts doesn't contain so many big names, the list on the second-division ProTeam side punches above its weight. We've mentioned the Quintanas and Anacona, but there's also no future decided for Julien Vermote, who once again finds himself without a team. The Belgian, who played a part in numerous sprint wins for QuickStep several years ago, trained alone through the winter of 2020-2021 before eventually being picked up by Alpecin-Deceuninck, but now they're moving to the WorldTour and not renewing his contract, leaving him back in the same sorry position. 

Sacha Modolo is facing an uncertain future and could be facing retirement after parting ways with Bardiani-CSF after just one disappointing season. The Italian has won nearly 50 races in his career, including two stage wins at the Giro d'Italia, but has only struck once since 2018. At 35, retirement may well be on the horizon. 

Niccolo Bonifazio started his career racing alongside Modolo at Lampre-Merida in 2014 and is also on the market. The Italian has spent the past four years at TotalEnergies and won a stage of the Route d'Occitanie for them this year but his departure has already been announced. 

Timothy Dupont is another Belgian who surprisingly finds himself without a team. He's 35 now but has taken some decent sprinting scalps in recent years, this year beating Olav Kooij and Elia Viviani at ZLM Tour, but he's not in Bingoal Pauwels Sauzen's plans for 2023. 

Uncertainty over teams

The uncertain fate of B&B Hotels leaves many riders in limbo, and not just the likes of Cavendish. While those prospective new faces don't have official signed contracts yet, it's worth pointing out that 20 riders do, with the likes Pierre Rolland and Luca Mozzato all still on board for 2023. If the worst did come to the worst, all those riders would flood onto the market, too.

There is also some lack of clarity over at Tudor Pro Cycling, which leaves a number of WorldTour-level riders without anything official in place. The team is backed by Fabian Cancellara, starting out as a development squad but with plans to compete as a second-division ProTeam from 2023.

Unlike B&B Hotels, there is no hint of financial troubles and the lack of clarity seemingly just relates to the fact that they have yet to officially launch their project and reveal their roster. The likes of Sebastian Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Simon Pellaud (Trek-Segafredo), Alexander Kamp (Trek-Segafredo), Matthew Holmes (Lotto Soudal), and Joel Suter (UAE Team Emirates) have all been heavily linked.  

The ProTeam market is already a saturated one given the demise of certain teams. Drone Hopper-Androni, Gianni Savio's long-running team who brought through the likes of Egan Bernal, are set to drop to Continental level after a sponsorship shortfall.  With precise budget and plans still not in place, several of the team's 2022 riders are without contracts for next year. 

Likewise, the ongoing sanctions on Russian teams means the riders at Gazprom-RusVelo who didn't find a mid-season move after the Ukraine invasion are still on the market. 

WorldTour riders still without deals

Cofidis are saying goodbye to a fair few riders, with four currently on the market having not received contract extensions. Davide Villella is the highest-profile of them, having racked up 13 Grand Tours across stints at Cannondale, Astana, and Movistar. The 31-year-old joined Cofidis on a one-year deal and didn't do enough to convince the team to keep him. 

Sander Armée has had a turbulent couple of years after a solid seven-year stint at Lotto Soudal, bouncing onto Qhubeka Assos when the team was saved at the end of 2020 and then winding up at Cofidis on a one-year contract when the Qhubeka eventually folded. At 36, he's nearing the end but is understood to want to race on. Tom Bohli has spent two seasons at the French team but isn't in their plans for 2023. The Swiss connection might link him to the new Tudor team but so far there have been no reports of a move. Meanwhile, Kenneth Vanbilsen has spent a full eight years at Cofidis but has been deemed surplus to requirements. 

Over at Astana Qazaqstan, Sebastian Henao's future is up in the air. The Colombian - cousin of Sergio Henao - put his career on hold in the summer due to health reasons and there has been no news of future plans, leaving his professional career in doubt. Michele Gazzoli's contract was also terminated in the summer, although for doping reasons after he tested positive for Tuaminoheptane. The one-year ban for the 'unintentional' violation was backdated and Gazzoli will be eligible to race from February, but he faces a struggle to find a team who'll take him mid-season, post-ban. 

Despite being one of Astana's Kazakhstani riders, Vladim Pronskiy has not yet got a new deal after turning pro with his home team three years ago. The squad have been slow in confirming their roster for 2023 - only last week did they announce a renewal for the Kazakh U23 world champion Yevgeniy Fedorov - and they still have a couple of places open, but already have 10 Kazakhstani riders on board - the number they had last year. 

Lotto Soudal are another team with multiple riders up for renewal. They have space on their roster but are prioritising finding a team manager, which looks like it'll drag on into December. Matthew Holmes has been linked with Tudor, but Carlos Barbero - who only joined the team in May after the demise of Qhubeka - is in the lurch, as are lead-out man and track specialist Roger Kluge, and Xandres Vervloesem. Two signings were made last week and there are still a few spaces on the roster. 

As ever, there has been some confusion caused by non-disclosure of contract lengths, leading to reports that Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost) and Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) were on the market, when in fact both have time left on their deals. Over at UAE, the same goes for Ryan Gibbons, Juan Sebastian Molano, and Yousef Mirza, who will all remain in place in 2023. Oliveira Troia, who turned pro with the team in 2017, is on his way out with no team as of yet, while Joel Suter is reportedly on his way to Tudor. Finally, there's a space in the roster after the final year of Andres Camilo Ardila's contract was dissolved, with the Colombian set to join a second-division team. 

As Israel-Premier Tech prepare to drop from the WorldTour, they have let go Canadian duo James Piccoli and Alexander Cataford. "There’s no way to sugar coat it… this year has been one of the most difficult in my sporting career and life," said Piccoli, who suggested he'll have news to share soon. 

Over at Bahrain Victorious, Ahmed Madan doesn't have a contract for 2023 yet. The 22-year-old is a home rider for the team but has hardly raced for them. Meanwhile Alejandro Osorio had his contract terminated in the spring for 'multiple breaches' that remain mysterious, and he looks set to continue any racing career at Continental level in Colombia. 

Other WorldTour riders with nothing in place for 2023 include Stijn Steels (QuickStep), Daniel Arroyave (EF), Anthony Julien (AG2R), and Alexander Konychev (BikeExchange-Jayco).