“It is nice to think about ending my career with a team that has a Dutch character. They have a lot of ambition, and I just want to enjoy riding my bike for a year, get results in races and finish with a good feeling. It is probably my final year,” he said.
A new setting, a realistic ambition and a final long-shot targetPoels will race in 2026 with Unibet Rose Rockets, which will be his first team outside the WorldTour since 2010. Unlike Astana, the project relies on wildcard invitations for the biggest events, but Poels has not ruled out the possibility of ending his career on the sport’s biggest stage if circumstances align.“To be honest, I was not hoping to take part in the Tour de France again, but if I could, it would be a big bonus,” he stated.
Beyond sporting goals, Poels has also chosen to relocate from Germany back to the Netherlands after many years abroad.
“I want to live close to my family again. As an athlete, you have quite a special life. I have always done everything I could for cycling and never really built a social life. As a rider, you are quite selfish. You need to be in order to reach the top, but now things are changing,” he explained, adding that fatherhood in 2022 reshaped elements of his outlook.
Poels was a key lieutenant of Chris Froome during his Team Sky days
A career that spans eras and leaves a balanced legacy
Although best known for his mountain support role at Team Sky during their Grand Tour-dominating period, Poels also produced victories of the highest calibre — most notably Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2016 and stage wins in both the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, alongside successes in several major stage races.
His next year may therefore act not only as a farewell, but as an opportunity to choose the tone, environment and meaning of that farewell — something very few long-serving professionals ever secure.