Lotto-Intermarché merger shows that the WorldTour remains a gig economy

Ahead of the final stage of the Tour of Guangxi, a guard of honour was held for the riders who had opted to retire. As it turned out, only two men – Ryan Gibbons and Nans Peters – were feted, but plenty of those spinning their front wheels in their honour must have wondered if this, too, would be their final act in the professional peloton.

Above all, the riders of Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty must have looked on with a feeling somewhere between doubt and dread. The touted merger between the two teams has been rumbling on since the summer, but oftentimes, the riders themselves have known even less about the planned fusion than the rest of us.

Eduardo Sepulveda had originally been set to extend his contract with Lotto, but the Argentinian no longer has any guarantees. He left China last week still unsure if he had just ridden the final race of a distinguished, trailblazing career.

It was a similar situation for Tom Paquot, who had reached a provisional agreement to extend with Intermarché-Wanty in early summer, though he hadn’t put pen to paper. With grim predictability, the contract trail went cold as soon as word spread of the possible Lotto-Intermarché merger. Paquot has been in the game long enough to understand that; far less acceptable was the way he and his teammates continued to be kept in the dark over the future of the squad in the weeks and months that followed.

“I first heard about the merger plans in the press, just like everyone else,” Paquot told La Dernière Heure this week, adding that pretty much all the information he has received since has been gleaned from the fourth estate. “I have to thank the journalists: without them, we wouldn’t have known anything.”

The riders aren’t the only ones out of the loop. Former Lotto manager Stéphane Heulot revealed this week that he had been cut out of the merger plans by CEO Jannie Haek. Indeed, Heulot claimed he was still in the process of trying to deliver a new co-sponsor for the team when he learned of the covertly planned merger.

“After the agreements were made, I called the board to present the project,” Heulot told Cyclismactu this week. “The CEO of Lotto told me I was too late, that a collaboration with Intermarché-Wanty was already underway. I was stunned. We were going to announce the co-sponsor on the Tour’s second rest day. Everything was ready.”

Heulot quit his post at Lotto at the end of September, but even now, there has still been no official announcement of a merger between two teams in the top flight of professional cycling, even though – thanks to Het Laatste Nieuws – it’s an open secret that Intermarché’s Jean-François Bourlart will be CEO of the merged team, which will ride aboard Orbea bikes.

But at every stage, amid all the murmurs and whispers, developments have been reported by the Belgian press rather than announced by either of the teams. And all the while, the riders of Intermarché and Lotto – both with and without contracts – have faced an uncertain future.

At one point, CPA president Adam Hansen found himself informing riders about the kind of things their respective teams should have felt dutybound to tell them. “The riders deserved to know their situation, and they should have known months ago,” he wrote recently. “The CPA should not be the one delivering this kind of news.”

Last week, the UCI published the list of applicants for WorldTour licences for 2026, and while Lotto’s was present, Intermarché’s name was missing. This would seem to confirm that Lotto will absorb Intermarché, but – absurdly – neither team has made any official statement on the matter.

According to UCI rules, meanwhile, Intermarché riders with contracts for 2026, including Biniam Girmay and Louis Barré, are now free to break those contracts and sign elsewhere. But even here, the riders face uncertainty and friction due to Intermarché-Wanty’s reported outstanding debts.

Wielerflits has reported that Barré will sign for Visma | Lease a Bike, but the site also explains there has been no formal announcement yet because Intermarché are still trying to extract a transfer fee, citing Belgian labour law. Girmay, apparently destined for the rebranded Israel-Premier Tech, faces a similar issue. 

And so as October flips into November, there is still uncertainty for so many riders and support staff at Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty, just as there are still doubts for all at Jayco-Alula until the team submits its bank guarantee for 2026. 

Team managers like to tell prospective sponsors these days that cycling is run in a more professional manner than ever before, but the trickle of news regarding the Lotto-Intermarché merger is giving lie to that assertion.

At this remove – and amid the information vacuum from both Lotto and Intermarché – this looks a lot like the kind of business we have seen in cycling since time immemorial. This storyline could certainly have been lifted from the cycling of the 1980s or 1990s. The figures on the balance sheets are bigger, but the attitudes of those making the decisions are unchanged. 

Even in the big-budget WorldTour era, pro cycling remains very much a gig economy, with riders and supporting staff alike in precarious situations. 

Of course, there have been circumstances beyond the control of the decision-makers at Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty. The costs of running a top-level team are spiralling, and their respective backers were not able to plug all the gaps in their respective budgets. In that light, there is an obvious economic logic to the merger between two Belgian teams. Nobody, not even the riders and staff who will be left on the sidelines in 2026, would argue with that.

The problem, however, is the lack of empathy and respect that has been afforded to those most affected by the fusion of the teams. Cycling teams are quick to present themselves as family operations when times are good, but too many retain the habit of abruptly pulling down the shutters and behaving like corporations when it suits them. In situations like this, the extended ‘family’ of riders, mechanics and soigneurs are very quickly reduced to euros and cents on a balance sheet.

It didn’t have to be this way. The behaviour of Lotto and Intermarché contrasts starkly with Arkéa-B&B Hotels, who ceased operations at the end of this season after failing to secure new sponsors. Around 150 families will be affected by the team’s demise, but, unlike in Belgium, nobody at Arkéa was blindsided by the news.

Both title sponsors confirmed in the Spring that they would not continue, and manager Emmanuel Hubert immediately passed the news on to his riders and staff. Indeed, he went further, granting everybody – even those still under contract for 2026 – permission to seek employment elsewhere.

That good faith was reciprocated. Star man Kévin Vauquelin didn’t confirm his move to Ineos until Arkéa’s demise was certain, lest it hinder Hubert’s desperate attempts to find a new sponsor. 

By the time Arkéa arrived in Guangxi, it was already clear the team would not continue into 2026. When the official confirmation arrived on October 15, there were only expressions of gratitude from riders and staff for Hubert’s attempts to save the team and, above all, for the way he had kept them apprised of the situation.

Given the current climate, many from the Arkéa set-up will end up leaving the sport altogether this winter, but their exit will hit differently to that of their counterparts at Lotto and Intermarché. 

Pro cycling, like all top-level sport, will always be a ruthless business, but that should never be an excuse for treating people like commodities.