As the 2026 season looms closer, the merger between Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty marks a pivotal moment — not just for the two squads involved, but for the peloton at large. The letter of intent first emerged at the Tour de France this summer, and when the UCI published the list of applicants for WorldTour licences for 2026, there was a notable absentee: Intermarché. However, on the roster was Lotto, which has been a ProTour team for the past three years and will re-enter the WorldTour as Lotto-Intermarché.

This merger is driven primarily by financial need: both teams have struggled to secure long-term co-sponsors and to remain viable in an era of ballooning costs and shrinking margins. Intermarché-Wanty is reported to carry a debt of around €2.5 million. So, the deal offers a consolidation of resources under Lotto’s licence, a survival strategy in a sport where budgets increasingly dictate status.

Yet the merger’s path is anything but smooth. The combined roster already counts over 40 contracted riders, well above the UCI’s limit of 30 for WorldTour squads. And the staff implications are equally murky. So what does this mean for the riders, the staff, and the broader ecosystem of professional cycling?

At the centre of this merger and the team’s potential for 2026 and beyond is the figure of Biniam Girmay. The Eritrean sprinter, who has already etched his name into history with Grand Tour stage wins and the green jersey at the Tour, signed a contract extension with Intermarché-Wanty through 2028. 

Yet even for a talent of his calibre, the merger introduces both opportunity and ambiguity. On the one hand, joining forces with Lotto could offer Girmay a more robust platform: more support, more depth in lead-out trains and other leaders to take the pressure off his shoulders. On the other hand, the merged team will also inherit the roster of Lotto’s budding sprinter, Arnaud De Lie. That raises questions: whose team is it? Who gets the lead-out? Which race becomes the focus?

Reports indicate that contracted Intermarché-Wanty riders, under the terms of the licence merger, may technically be free to depart since Lotto will hold the licence and be the paying agent. Girmay has been linked to other squads amid the uncertainty.

Merger talk often focuses on riders, but the human cost behind the scenes is stark. People will lose their jobs. This is a story repeated in many sports: when two organisations join, duplication becomes unsustainable and redundancies become inevitable. Yet in cycling, marginal gains relies on the entire team ecosystem — from the soigneurs to the mechanics. For those losing their jobs, the loss is both professional and personal. For the merged team, cultural integration and continuity of operation become new risks. The team’s image is also important: a sport that prides itself on solidarity, teamwork and the margin of human performance must now reconcile that narrative with the reality of corporate efficiency and consolidation.

Beyond these two Belgian teams, the merger points to a broader shift in professional cycling, one that I have been pointing out recently: talent and resources are increasingly concentrated in fewer, richer squads. With rising wage bills, equipment costs, and marketing demands, smaller teams find it harder to compete, and the logic of scale becomes harder to resist.

The new Lotto-Intermarché entity will not be at the very top of the budget pyramid, but it is being shaped to sit in the mid-tier of WorldTour teams. That shift raises deeper questions: What happens to the smaller squads? How will young riders gain opportunities if fewer top-level teams dominate? Will the closure of pathways impede the very dynamism that has made cycling resilient and exciting?

For the sport’s ecosystem, the contraction of team variety may reduce competitive diversity. Races may become more predictable if talent is funnelled into a shrinking number of well-funded outfits. Inversely, though, for sponsors and broadcasters, fewer teams may translate into clearer brands and stronger narratives. The next two seasons will tell — and not just for Lotto-Intermarché, but for the shape of professional road cycling itself.