Neilson Powless, Lachlan Morton, Esteban Chaves headline 31-rider roster at EF Education-Nippo

Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters says he wants to change up how the team races in 2022 with 11 new riders.

Nielson Powless on his way to win San Sebastian (Photo: Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)

Published January 6, 2022 08:21AM

EF Education-Nippo wants to change how it races following an overhaul of its roster for 2022.

The American team has been one of the busiest in the transfer window, signing 11 new riders for this season and saying goodbye to 10. In total, the team has a massive 31 riders on its roster.

Esteban Chaves, Owain Doull, Merhawi Kudus, and Mark Padun are among the new faces on the squad in 2022. With an influx of different riders, team CEO Jonathan Vaughters is keen to add some new targets for this season.

“This has the potential to be the strongest roster we’ve ever had,” Vaughters said. “It’s a dynamic, fun, interesting, and very high potential roster of riders. We changed one-third of the team so that’s a pretty extreme turnover, but that’s been with some very specific intent in changing the way that we race and changing what we’re focused on.

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“I’m most excited about the prospect of doing some stuff that we haven’t done before. Chasing stage wins, we’ve done that. We’re quite good at it and we will continue to do it but when I say stuff we haven’t done before I mean to go after king of the mountains jerseys in a way that maybe we haven’t focused on in the past.”

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While there are plenty of new faces for this year, there are some well-established ones remaining on the team. Neilson Powless will lead American hopes within the squad, alongside Alex Howes and new signing Sean Quinn.

Meanwhile, part-time adventurer Lachlan Morton is still on the roster. It remains to be seen if he’ll take on more racing this year or if he’ll take on some more big challenges, such as is Alt Tour where he rode the route of the Tour de France alone and ahead of the peloton.

Hugh Carthy, Magnus Cort, Simon Carr, Stefan Bisseger, Alberto Betiol, and Rigoberto Urán are all also on the line-up for this season.

DS Charly Wegelius wants the team to continue being aggressive in its racing style rather than use a more defensive strategy.

“We are a team who isn’t afraid to try. We would much rather try and lose something or not get a podium place than quietly sit by and let races play their way out,” Wegelius said. “If we can be on the front foot and be protagonists, then that’s who we want to be. When there are chances and when races open up, we want to be a part of it.”

2022 EF Education-Nippo roster

Daniel Arroyave (Colombia)
Alberto Bettiol (Italy)
Stefan Bissegger (Switzerland)
Jonathan Caicedo (Ecuador)
Diego Camargo (Colombia)
Simon Carr (Great Britain)
Hugh Carthy (Great Britain)
Esteban Chaves (Colombia)
Owain Doull (Great Britain)
Odd Christian Eiking (Norway)
Ruben Guerreiro (Portugal)
Ben Healy (Ireland)
Alex Howes (USA)
Jens Keukeleire (Belgium)
Merhawi Kudus (Eritrea)
Sebastian Langeveld (Netherlands)
Lachlan Morton (Australia)
Hideto Nakane (Japan)
Magnus Cort Nielsen (Denmark)
Mark Padun (Ukraine)
Neilson Powless (USA)
Sean Quinn (USA)
Jonas Rutsch (Germany)
Thomas Scully (New Zealand)
James Shaw (Great Britain)
Georg Steinhauser (Germany)
Rigoberto Urán (Colombia)
Michael Valgren (Denmark)
Marijn van den Berg (Netherlands)
Julius van den Berg (Netherlands)
Łukasz Wiśniowski (Poland)

EF Education-EasyPost Esteban Chaves Hugh Carthy Jonathan Vaughters Lachlan Morton Neilson Powless

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