Emanuel Buchmann will leave Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at the end of this season to join Cofidis, where he will replace the departing Guillaume Martin as the squad’s GC leader at the Grand Tours.
Buchmann’s departure from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe has been inevitable since he took to social media to lament his omission from their Giro d’Italia squad. He insisted that he had been promised co-leadership with Daniel Martínez, who went on to finish second overall, though the claim was denied by the team.
The German is currently sidelined by the broken collarbone and hip he sustained in a crash at the Tour de Suisse in June.
On Wednesday, Cofidis announced that they had agreed a contract with him for the 2025 season.
Buchmann has spent his entire professional career to date with Bora-Hansgrohe, and his finest hour came in 2019, when he placed fourth overall at the Tour de France. He was compromised by a crash ahead of the following year’s Tour, while another fall forced him out of the 2021 Giro d’Italia while he was in contention for high overall finish.
He picked up his second top 10 finish in a Grand Tour when he placed seventh on the 2022 Giro, a race won by his teammate Jai Hindley. Buchmann slipped further down the pecking order at the team this season following the arrival of Martínez and Primož Roglič.
“After ten seasons with Bora-Hansgrohe, I really wanted a change, to discover a new environment and a different team culture too,” Buchmann said.
“I quickly understood that Cofidis had confidence in me to take on this challenge. Simon Geschke and I had spoken a lot about the team.”
Buchmann is the sixth new signing to be announced by Cofidis for 2025 following Simon Carr, Dylan Teuns, Sylvain Moniquet, Valentin Ferron and Damien Touzé.
Guillaume Martin has confirmed his imminent departure for Groupama-FDJ, while Alex Zingle has signed for Visma-Lease a Bike.
“Emanuel is a rider capable of competing with the best in the world and his arrival within our structure is a new challenge,” said Cofidis manager Cédric Vasseur.
“We want to enable him to return to his best level in 2025 and he will of course be our trump card for the general classification of the Grand Tours.”
Buchmann, for his part, already has a clear idea of his target for 2025.
“I’m a climber and a rider who likes the general classification,” he said. “Of course, being in a French team, I’ll be fighting to do the Tour de France again.”