{"id":477726,"date":"2026-02-16T03:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T03:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477726\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T03:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T03:23:12","slug":"new-signings-are-flourishing-so-far-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477726\/","title":{"rendered":"New signings are flourishing so far in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/corvos-almeria-girmay.jpg\" alt=\"New signings are flourishing so far in 2026\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <a class=\"article__category\" href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/news-and-racing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News &amp; Racing<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__sub-title\">Matthew Riccitello and Biniam Girmay have both enjoyed victories this weekend, two of the many riders debuting for a new team, and thoroughly enjoying themselves.<\/p>\n<p>                                <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kit Nicholson\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"author__photo lazy \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/profile-pic-KN-150x150.jpg\" width=\"99\" height=\"99\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cor Vos<\/p>\n<p>The road racing season is barely a month old, and yet plenty of storylines have already spilled ink, including a few that we\u2019ll be following for the duration of 2026. Of course, UAE Team Emirates-XRG has essentially picked up <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/uae-team-emirates-makes-history-with-86-victories-in-2025-so-far\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">from where it left off<\/a> a few months ago, but the top team&#8217;s riders have had competition in the early-season discourse: after a busy winter for transfers, new signings have been particularly successful so far in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>And we\u2019re not just talking about the exploits of Remco Evenepoel with Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe. The Belgian is just one of many who has broken the seal with victory, including <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tour-down-under-the-finish-we-expected-just-not-the-winner\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tobias Lund Andresen<\/a> (Decalthon-CMA CGM), Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers), Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United), Arne Marit (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) and <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/groenewegen-chalks-up-first-win-for-unibet-rose-rockets\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dylan Groenewegen<\/a> (Unibet Rose Rockets) among others.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"kg-bookmark-container\" href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/remco-evenepoel-is-quickly-making-red-bull-his-team\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>Remco Evenepoel is quickly making Red Bull his team<\/p>\n<p>With four wins in his first five races of the year, the team\u2019s marquee signee is making an early claim to top status in the leadership hierarchy.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/evenepoeltt-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" onerror=\"this.style.display = 'none'\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This weekend, Matthew Riccitello and Biniam Girmay have been among the winners at the Tour de la Provence and Clasica de Almeria, both of them in their first or second appearance for Decathlon-CMA CGM and NSN respectively. Both of them winning for the first time in many many months, and both proving the merits of a fresh start.<\/p>\n<p>The relative success of new signings compared to their own previous performances is a familiar theme for this point in a season. We saw it last year with <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/pidcock-gets-his-first-win-for-q36-5\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tom Pidcock\u2019s flying start for Q36.5<\/a> at the AlUla Tour and Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez for UAE at the Tour Down Under, and in 2024 when <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/mexican-phenom-del-toro-surprises-sprinters-at-tdu\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Isaac Del Toro christened his pro career<\/a> with a WorldTour stage victory on his third day in a UAE Team jersey. But 2026 has seen the number of victorious new signings more than double compared to this time last year (and the increase is still significant even without Evenepoel\u2019s contribution); 35% of this season\u2019s results in the men\u2019s peloton so far have been won by those wearing a new team&#8217;s jersey.<\/p>\n<p>            This post is for subscribers only<br \/>\n            <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" href=\"#\/portal\/signup\" style=\"color:#FF6F42\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\" href=\"#\/portal\/signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n<p class=\"reactions\" data-post-id=\"6991fd2184f1ba82cfc1b778\">\n                    \ud83d\udc4dYep<br \/>\n                    \ud83d\udc4eNope\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"tags\">\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/news-and-racing\/\" title=\"News &amp; Racing\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f293b3 news-and-racing\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News &amp; Racing<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/matthew-riccitello\/\" title=\"Matthew Riccitello\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f29349 matthew-riccitello\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Riccitello<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/decathlon-cma-cgm\/\" title=\"Decathlon-CMA CGM\" class=\"tag tag-693c4f2c0fde8dac80e63150 decathlon-cma-cgm\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Decathlon-CMA CGM<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/biniam-girmay\/\" title=\"Biniam Girmay\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f29065 biniam-girmay\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Biniam Girmay<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/nsn\/\" title=\"NSN\" class=\"tag tag-691f68dc8c8888dc0e987a92 nsn\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NSN<\/a>\n                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News &amp; Racing Matthew Riccitello and Biniam Girmay have both enjoyed victories this weekend, two of the many&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-477726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}