Wout Poels' adventure at Unibet Rose Rockets is set to write another chapter. WielerFlits reports that the 39-year-old Dutchman is close to finding an agreement to extend his career through 2027 at Bas Tietema's formation. Poels would therefore ride his 19th professional season next year. This comes as a change of mind to Poels' statements from the start of this year when he claimed to be "ninety percent certain to retire" at the end of 2026.

Poels joined Rockets ahead of last season as one of the team's three marquee signings (alongside Dylan Groenewegen and Victor Lafay) after a successful career which saw him represent Vacansoleil, Quick-Step, Team Sky, Bahrain - Victorious, and most recently XDS Astana.

The 39-year-old's greatest success came in the Sky colours when he won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2016. Poels was also an important link of the legendary Team Sky mountain train, having contributed to five Grand Tour titles (Tour de France 2015-2017 & 2019, Vuelta a Espana 2018).

Later with Bahrain, Poels rediscovered himself as a stage hunter who won stages at Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana (both in 2023), and finished runner-up in the King of the Mountains classification at Tour de France 2021, only shy of overall winner Tadej Pogacar. In 2026, Poels attempted one more time to complete his collection of Grand Tour stage wins at Giro d'Italia with the Rockets, but did not come closer to victory than 8th on stage 14, and 9th on stage 8.

Conservative transfer window

While in previous seasons, we have seen Unibet Rockets' roster evolve rapidly with up to 15 new names joining its ranks ahead of 2026 season, no such "chaos" is planned for this winter.

With Wout Poels, the 2027 lineup would feature 26 names at the moment. So far, the only newcomer is Cofidis ex-rider Axel Mariault who took a step back to continental level this season, but convinced enough to earn a new chance in professional ranks.

As for the remaining four spots, little is known at the moment. It is quite unlikely that those spots will be filled out by new riders as Rockets already bid goodbye to Killian Verschuren, Sergio Meris, retiring Odd Christian Eiking and Clement Venturini (to Lotto-Intermarché). Victor Lafay's future remains with a question mark.

Unibet Rose Rockets have been previously mentioned among the possible destinations of Primoz Roglic in 2027, however that rumour has cooled off since. Thus it anything remains a possibility, including the five-time Grand Tour champion's arrival in French-Dutch PRT lineup.

Unibet Rose Rockets lineup for 2027: