{"id":856820,"date":"2026-08-13T17:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/856820\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T17:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:24:15","slug":"alpecin-premier-tech-is-building-a-team-around-alongside-van-der-poel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/856820\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpecin-Premier Tech is building a team around\/alongside Van der Poel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alpecin-Premier Tech<\/a> has offered a glimpse behind the scenes of its transfer strategy. Team boss Philip Roodhooft<\/a> spoke with cycling journalist Daniel Benson<\/a> about the decisions the team has made \u2014 and is still making \u2014 as it shapes its roster for 2027.Alpecin-Premier Tech has already announced three new signings. Iv\u00e1n Garcia Cortina will arrive from Movistar and strengthen the Classics group around Mathieu van der Poel<\/a>, while Madis Mihkels<\/a> of EF Education-EasyPost and Casper van Uden<\/a> of Picnic PostNL will add depth to the team’s sprinting options. IDL Procycling previously reported on all three signings when they were announced at the start of August.The Belgian team is also losing a sprinter in Kaden Groves, who has been strongly linked with a move <\/a>to Tudor Pro Cycling. Roodhooft and his brother Christoph were therefore able to anticipate the need for replacements. \u201cWe had profiles in mind for what we needed if we were going to lose riders in certain areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Groves’ departure had been known internally for some time, so the Roodhooft brothers began looking for riders with similar qualities. Garcia Cortina emerged as one of their targets because, Roodhooft explained: \u201cWe felt that we were missing a rider who could be there in the finals and support Van der Poel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"mathieu-van-der-poel\"\/<\/p>\n

Mathieu van der Poel<\/p>\n

Alpecin-Premier Tech sees opportunities for Garcia Cortina and Mihkels<\/p>\n

With Gianni Vermeersch leaving for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe and S\u00f8ren Kragh Andersen joining Lidl-Trek, Alpecin-Premier Tech had lost some strength in that department, making reinforcement around Van der Poel another priority. \u201cWe had to fill a gap, and if you can also bring in someone like Mihkels, you shouldn’t hesitate.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Roodhooft, Mihkels and Garcia Cortina do not necessarily have to take over exactly the same roles previously performed by Groves and Vermeersch. \u201cMihkels has already finished in the top five in Giro sprints several times without really having much support. We think we can give him that lead-out.\u201d The Estonian indeed produced several strong sprint results at the 2026 Giro d’Italia despite EF Education-EasyPost not bringing a dedicated lead-out train for him.<\/p>\n

Because Alpecin-Premier Tech already knew before the Giro d’Italia that Groves would be leaving, the team was able to move quickly while plenty of riders were still available on the market. \u201cBut we don’t want every rider at any price. We want things to be reasonable; otherwise, we don’t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"ivan-garcia-cortina\"\/<\/p>\n

Iv\u00e1n Garcia Cortina<\/p>\n

Alpecin-Premier Tech was not willing to overpay for Arnaud De Lie<\/p>\n

\u201cSome riders are overpriced. That’s great for them, but we’re not going to follow that,\u201d Roodhooft said. \u201cIf it was easy, everyone could do it. We believe there are more good riders on the market, and we believe in what we can offer as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what exactly can Alpecin-Premier Tech offer? \u201cI can imagine that, as a sprinter, you look at the lead-outs we provide and think you’d like to be delivered to the finish like that as well. We also always go into the Classics with a certain spirit and preparation, where we get the best out of our riders. If a rider considers that important, then you can always reach a financially good deal. Agents know that too.\u201d<\/p>\n

One rider Alpecin-Premier Tech missed out on was Arnaud De Lie, precisely because of the approach outlined by Roodhooft. The Belgian had previously been linked with the team, but Alpecin was unwilling to match the offers coming from elsewhere. \u201cHe would fit well with us, but we didn’t want to compete with what other teams were offering. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket, so we always have a plan B or C.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alpecin-Premier Tech has offered a glimpse behind the scenes of its transfer strategy. Team boss Philip Roodhooft spoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[162943,49,48,168804,635,298019,298018,13633,298020,82],"class_list":["post-856820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-alpecin-premier-tech","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-casper-van-uden","tag-cycling","tag-ivan-garcia-cortina","tag-madis-mihkels","tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","tag-philip-roodhooft","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856820","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=856820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}