EF Education-EasyPost have yet to announce any signings during the August transfer window, but the UCI’s website appears to have done it for them.
Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli riders Jefferson Alexander Cepeda and Andrea Piccolo have been heavily linked with mid-season moves to the American squad and now appear on the American WorldTour team’s squad list (opens in new tab) at uci.org.
Androni boss Gianni Savio confirmed that Piccolo would be leaving in an interview with Bici.pro (opens in new tab) on August 1, while five days earlier, the Vuelta a Burgos website (opens in new tab) announced that Cepeda would be racing as part of EF’s lineup (though the team’s final selection was different).
The pair appear to have replaced Lachlan Morton and Alex Howes on the EF squad list, with neither rider appearing under EF Education-EasyPost on the UCI website. In recent seasons, the pair have turned their focus more and more to gravel racing and the ‘alternative calendar’.
Howes only has seven road race days to his name in 2022, while Morton hasn’t turned out in EF colours on the road since February. Both men now look likely to have said goodbye to their road careers as they turn their full-time attention to gravel and off-road racing.
Meanwhile, Piccolo and Cepeda are set to be the latest in a long line of talent to make the jump from Savio’s team to the WorldTour, following Simon Pellaud, Fausto Masnada, Mattia Cattaneo, Iván Sosa, Egan Bernal, and more.
Ecuadorian rider Cepeda has been at Androni since 2020, the 24-year-old since scoring some stand-out results including fourth at the 2021 Tour of the Alps, second at this year’s Giro di Sicilia, and fifth at June’s Adriatica Ionica Race.
Piccolo is set to race for his third team of the season, having only joined Androni in late June.
The 21-year-old Italian turned pro with Astana last year but didn’t race due to “personal health reasons” (opens in new tab) detected at an early season training camp. The highly rated youngster returned with the development squad Viris Vigevano, taking a win at the U23 Ruota d’Oro before joining Gazprom-RusVelo this season.
Once again, his promising career looked to be in trouble when the squad was banned from competition by the UCI following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After three months of no racing, he came back with Androni, taking fourth at the Italian National Championships, sixth at the Sibiu Tour, and second at the Circuito de Getxo before his transfer to EF.
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