Team Sunweb have handed two-year contract extensions to both Nikias Arndt and Florian Stork, which will keep them with the German WorldTour team until at least the end of the 2022 season.
Twenty-eight-year-old Arndt is in his eighth year with the squad, and has developed into somewhat of a road captain for Sunweb, although he still finds himself with plenty of opportunities to ride for himself, which include having won stage 8 of the 2019 Vuelta a España in a reduced-bunch sprint. Australian fans of the sport will also remember him for his 2017 victory at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, while the previous year, Arndt sprinted to victory on the final stage of the Giro d'Italia in Turin.
"Since joining the team in 2013, I've really found a home here," Arndt said in a press release on Monday. "I like the team's way of working, and I think we fit really well together as we share a similar mindset.
"I've enjoyed moving into the role of road captain and sharing my experience with our younger riders, but I also still learn something new from them every day," he continued. "I think with Team Sunweb, I can still develop as a rider in the coming years, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work together and achieving some nice results as a team."
Twenty-three-year-old Stork only made the step up to the WorldTour team from Sunweb's development squad at the start of the 2019 season, but has already found his feet as an all-rounder who's prepared to help the team no matter what the terrain.
"I'm really looking forward to staying another two years with the team," said Stork. "It's nice to feel the trust put in me from the team in such hard times with the COVID-19 pandemic. For me, personally, it still feels like the fitting environment to progress further, and at this stage of my career I think I can provide a lot to the team, too.
"I want to gain more experience with the team in the coming years, continuing to improve overall as a rider and progressing further on the climbs and in time trials," he said.
Speaking about the contract extensions of the two German riders, Sunweb's head of coaching, Rudi Kemna, said: "Nikias has been a member of the team for a long time. He knows how we work very well and, likewise, we know how he works too – we both complement each other. Nikias excels in his role as road captain, and with his years of experience, he's someone that we can rely on to pass on his knowledge to help develop the younger riders that we have coming through our ranks.
"We're happy that Florian has extended with us for another two years," Kemna said. "He's a really versatile rider: he's solid in the lead-outs, can provide good support on the climbs for our GC riders, and he's a real all-round rider that brings value to the team, both on and off the bike. In the future we want to develop him into a road captain, as we think he has all the right attributes and qualities for that role."
