OSLO — Magnus Sheffield will leave Netcompany Ineos after five seasons with the British team to join Uno-X Mobility on a four-year contract through 2030, the Norwegian team announced on Wednesday. General Manager Thor Hushovd described the move as a "big signing" for Uno-X Mobility, who have never previously fielded riders from outside Norway and Denmark.
"Magnus is a rider with enormous potential, and I don't think we have seen the full extent of it yet," Hushovd said in the team's press release. "He has already finished fourth in Paris-Nice and sixth in [the Tour of] Flanders. That tells you a lot about the range he has." Hushovd added: "We believe we can give him the environment to take another step and develop into one of the leading riders in the sport."
The switch is facilitated by Sheffield's dual US-Norwegian citizenship. His mother is from Gjøvik, having moved to the United States as a 20-year-old, and the family speaks both English and Norwegian. "We are proud of the Norwegian part of Magnus' story as well. He has a Norwegian mother, he has spent a lot of time in Norway, and importantly for us, he speaks Norwegian," Hushovd said. "Language is an important part of the identity we have built as a team. Magnus understands the culture and can become part of it naturally from day one." On the bike, Sheffield won De Brabantse Pijl in his first season in the WorldTour and has shown promise as a stage racer with podiums at the Tour of Norway and Tour of Denmark, fourth at Paris-Nice and fifth at the Tour de Pologne, plus stage wins at Paris-Nice and the Vuelta a Andalucia. A strong time trialist and climber, he has raced the Giro d'Italia twice and the Vuelta a España once but has yet to take part in the Tour de France.
"From my first conversations with Thor, I felt that this was an environment where I could take the next step in my career," Sheffield said. "I've heard from both riders and staff that Uno-X genuinely feels like a family. The team keeps growing, but you can still see how close they are. The way they race especially shows that they are one unit." He joins incoming riders Casper Pedersen from Soudal-QuickStep, Felix Ørn-Kristoff from Lotto Intermarché and Kristian Egholm from Lidl-Trek Future Racing in the 2027 Uno-X Mobility line-up, while Netcompany Ineos will also see fellow Americans AJ August and Artem Shmidt depart for Pinarello Q36.5 and NSN Cycling respectively, with double junior world champion Benjamin Noval their only announced new signing so far.