Sam Bennett is set to prolong his career by at least one more year and will join up with Eddie Dunbar as a team mate at Q36.5 Pro Cycling next season as he is the team's final signing of the winter.
Dunbar's move to the team was announced early last month, and he has secured a two-year deal, while Bennett's move to the ProContinental squad has been put in place just a couple of weeks after the end of the season.
Bennett has been riding French World Tour team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale for the last two seasons but his exit from the squad was confirmed recently as it is restructuring with a new sprint set-up and new general classification riders.
He joins Q36.5 Pro Cycling at a time when it is moving forward; the signing of Tom Pidcock last winter, and his success for the team this year, a real bump in the squad's profile and strength.
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Kurt Bogaerts has been part of Pidcock's personal management team - at Trinity Racing, Ineos Grenadiers and now with Q36.5. Bogaerts was the former director of the An Post-Sean Kelly Continental team, where he managed Bennett as the team's star sprinter for three years to 2013.
Bogaerts has also managed Bennett and Dunbar on national teams down the years, filling the role of director of some of those teams while he was working with An Post-Sean Kelly.
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And that means Bennett goes into the team - it appears on a one-year contract - with some familiar faces already in place. It will be the first time he has ridden as a team mate of Dunbar's on a trade team.
Irish national champion Rory Townsend has ridden for the team for the past two seasons but he is set to move on, having won the ADAC Cyclassics one-day World Tour race in Germany in August with an epic performance; holding off the bunch in the closing straight after being up the road for 187km.
Bennett filling the final berth at Q36.5 Pro Cycling is effectively confirmation that Townsend is on his way out of the team, though his departure was well flagged before the Bennett signing was confirmed today.
"Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team is proud to announce the signing of Sam Bennett, completing our 30-rider line-up as we head into an exciting new chapter for the team," the team said in a statement.
It described Bennett as a rider who was "born in Belgium and raised in Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland, the same hometown as cycling legend Sean Kelly".
It added: "Bennett brings an unmatched winning pedigree to the squad, with 10 Grand Tour stage victories and the rare distinction of being among the select group of riders to have won stages in all three Grand Tours."
