WorldTour wins up for grabs: 5 riders still on the market for 2027

Most WorldTour rosters for 2027 are close to full, but not every established name has found a home. Some have been squeezed out by younger, cheaper riders, some by budget cuts, and some simply had a season that left teams hesitant. These five could still deliver results for whoever signs them.

Penhoët has been Groupama-FDJ’s lead sprinter this season, at the end of a train that includes Ewen Costiou and Lewis Askey. He has six professional wins, and his best result of 2026 was fourth at the Cyclassics Hamburg, which was the team’s joint-best WorldTour placing of the year.

He has not won this season, which explains why he is still available, but he is young and has spent several years building towards the big sprints. Groupama-FDJ have already signed Émilien Jeannière from TotalEnergies, which may push Penhoët towards a move. For a team without an established fast man, he is the most affordable sprinter of his age on the market.

Van Poppel became Dutch champion in 2025, beating Olav Kooij in a photo finish, and went into 2026 with Red Bull’s backing to sprint for himself rather than lead out others. It did not work. The Giro d’Italia, which was meant to be his main target, quietly came off his programme. “I was just not good enough,” he admitted to WielerFlits.

He went back to the role he is best known for, and in September led out Jordi Meeus to victory at the Brussels Cycling Classic. He is widely regarded as one of the best lead-out riders in the peloton, and says he now gets as much from that as from his own wins. “I enjoy a victory by a sprinter like Jordi just as much as one of my own,” he told WielerFlits. Any team with a sprinter capable of winning at WorldTour level would gain from having him in front.

Schachmann won Paris-Nice twice, in 2020 and 2021, has two German road titles, and has been on the podium at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche and the Amstel Gold Race. He returned to Soudal Quick-Step in 2025, but CEO Jürgen Foré has confirmed he will leave at the end of this season, part of a clear-out that also includes Mikel Landa and Ethan Hayter.

His 2026 was disrupted by crashes at the Volta ao Algarve, where he went down on a descent while leading on the final day alongside Julian Alaphilippe, and again at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali. He is unlikely to command the salary he once did, but a rider with his record in week-long stage races and the Ardennes classics would add genuine leadership to a smaller WorldTour or ProTeam squad.

Sénéchal won a stage of the Vuelta a España in 2021, took the French road title in 2022, and has Le Samyn, the Druivenkoers Overijse and the Primus Classic on his record from his years at Quick-Step, where he was a fixture in both the classics squad and the sprint train. He also won Paris-Roubaix Juniors in 2011, and the cobbles have remained his best terrain.

He moved to Arkéa-B&B Hotels for 2024 to lead out Arnaud Démare, and found himself looking for a team again when Arkéa folded at the end of last season. Now out of contract once more, he offers exactly the profile that teams rebuilding their classics groups have been chasing this autumn: experienced, comfortable on the cobbles, and able either to work for a sprinter or take his own chances.

Svrček is the youngest rider here and has the most still to prove. He took bronze in the under-23 road race at the 2023 World Championships, Slovakia’s first medal in the race for 16 years, and won Gullegem Koerse for Soudal Quick-Step in 2024. A bad crash before Milan-San Remo in 2025 cost him months, but he came back to win two medals at the Slovak championships that summer.

Soudal confirmed in September that he will not be part of their 2027 squad, as the team turns to riders from its own development programme. At 23, with three seasons of WorldTour experience and a background in the classics, he is the kind of rider a ProTeam or a mid-ranking WorldTour squad could pick up cheaply and develop.