Transfer mechanics: Age is just a number for Rui Costa

How a last-minute deal with EF Education-EasyPost came to be and secured the Portuguese veteran's WorldTour future

15:47, Monday 30th October 2023

Daniel Benson

Editor in Chief

Rui Costa riding alongside his future teammate Marijn van den Berg during the Vuelta a España

Back in August the chances of Rui Costa landing a spot at EF Education-EasyPost were slim to none.

The American team were close to their capacity after signing a glut of neo-pros, the season was beginning to peter out, and Rui Costa himself was still clinging to the notion of a contract extension at Intermarché-Circus-Wanty. Then, in October and in just a matter of days, one of the most surprising transfers of the year burst into life and quickly reached an exciting conclusion.

This is the story of how an email chain discussing Michael Valgren’s new abode, plus Neilson Powless’ admiration of the Portuguese rider, all culminated in Jonathan Vaughters securing the veteran Rui Costa on a one-year deal.

It’s early 2023, and Rui Costa has just begun his new one-year contract with Intermarché, a deal he hopes to extend. There’s a briskness in the air during the first few races of the season, and while plenty of riders are still shaking off the cobwebs and waking from their off-season slumbers, Ruis Costa is hungrier than ever. A victory in Costa’s first race of the season, the Trofeo Calvia, is quickly followed by a stage win and the overall title at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. He might only have one year on his contract but surely it’s only a matter of time before Intermarché snaps their rider up with a well-deserved extension?

While Rui Costa is winning on the road, and not concerning himself with his long-term future, his agent is beginning to do the rounds and meet with team bosses about potential transfers for 2024. Most agents turn up to such meetings with a brochure of rider names, a catalogue of Tour winners and their extensive palmarès all mixed in with juniors we’ve yet to hear of and journeymen domestiques looking to draw out just one more year.

Not all agents are the same, however, and João Correia, who runs the Corso Sports Marketing group that looks after Rui Costa, does things a little differently for his boutique collection of men and women cyclists.

“We don’t send out lists to teams,” he tells GCN in a phone call this autumn.

“What we have is a presentation with specific riders. On the last page of the presentation is a list of all the athletes that we have in the agency and on that page it shows when they’re available but with Rui, at the start of the year, the plan was for us to keep Rui at Intermarché. We had discussions about him renewing as early as April.”

A successful spring but no renewal arrives

April, however, turned into May and before too long the summer had arrived, and with it a wave of transfer activity that threatened to disrupt Costa’s chances of finding a major team. At the same time, Intermarché began to lose part of their significant financial clout for the next few seasons. They had already invested heavily elsewhere in the squad, but with new regulations coming into force due to betting advertising laws in Belgium, the cash provided by Circus was drastically reduced.

Rui Costa, to his credit, kept his head down and said very little in the press. That’s his style, and instead of wallowing in the uncertainty he focussed on what he does best. Racing.

Fourth place in Strade Bianche followed but Intermarché remained tightlipped right through the Tour de France. The Belgian team had been the rider’s first priority but time was beginning to be a factor and with rival team rosters already looking full in certain areas, Correia knew that it was time to act once late July turned into August.

“We really only started talking to teams after the Tour de France to be honest with you. It was August when we started talking to teams and telling them that Rui might be on the market in an exploratory way,” Correia adds.

A superb stage win at the Vuelta a España followed but even that didn’t really do much for Costa’s value on the transfer market. The on-off merger saga between Soudal Quick-Step and Jumbo-Visma certainly didn’t help, effectively stalling the market and putting a series of team bosses on red alerts for basement bargains. However, the most telling factor regarding the former world champion was something he had little control over: age.

Rui Costa won a stage at the Vuelta a España, but it didn't prove enough to impress Intermarché

“His age is a huge issue. He’s 37 years old and teams don’t want riders that are that old. It’s a real challenge to sell riders of that age,” Correia says.

“So riders have to be exceptional to change teams at that age. So even after he won the stage at the Vuelta, the phone wasn’t ringing. We had to proactively go out there.”

Then, on October 7, the email landed on Correia’s inbox. It was Jonathan Vaughters. “Is Rui still available?”

EF Education-EasyPost enter the conversation

The reason Vaughters reached out at that point deserves explanation. A month or so earlier, the American team boss and Correia had swapped messages about another matter entirely - Michael Valgren’s home address, to be precise. The Dane is a client of Correia and a rider on Vaughters’ EF squad, and with a new home address the agent and team boss needed to formalise an update to their paperwork and contracts. Midway through the email back-and-forth, Correia casually slipped into conversation that Rui Costa was still on the market.

At the time Vaughters didn’t bite. His team only had a couple of spots available and there had been interest in Tobias Foss after Ineos Grenadiers decided to temporarily ice their contract talks with the Norwegian. The former world time trial champion’s patience was rewarded when Ineos finally signed the rider and that - although not directly linked to Rui Costa - meant that there was still some budget and some space to play with on the EF roster.

“EF was always our top priority. In fact I’ve been talking to Jonathan Vaughters for three years about Rui. Since about 2021,” Correia says.

“I thought it was a team that he’d be successful in but for whatever reason we were never able to make it work but when it was clear that Rui was on the market it started to come together a few weeks ago.”

There’s also a much deeper connection surrounding Valgren, who's probably reading this and wondering if he needs to move house next time Vaughters wants to sign a new rider.

When Valgren suffered a major crash in 2022, instead of allowing his contract to expire at the end of the year, Vaughters offered the former Amstel Gold winner another year on the books as part of the team’s Continental squad. Not many teams would have been as generous or as understanding.

“I’ve known Jonathan for 30 years. There’s a good bond and the Valgren case is a good example from that team. When Michael crashed, and it was a bad crash, no one knew if he’d ever come back and the team actually extended his deal for another year. The team went above and beyond and there’s a lot of trust there,” Correia says.

Despite such a short turnaround between the initial period of interest on October 7 and the contract itself, Vaughters still needed to work around the clock to make sure the deal was right for him, his team, and of course the potential acquisition.

“João mentioned him about a month ago but I just didn’t think that it was realistic at first,” Vaughters tells GCN.

“Then about a week or two later…It happened really fast. Then we talked about the terms but beforehand I just assumed that if Rui was going to continue racing then it would be with Intermarché and that they wouldn't let him go.”

Vaughters’ first call after hearing that Rui Costa was still available was to one of his own riders, in this case Neilson Powless, the American star who has just signed a contract extension with the EF stable.

“One of the first things I did was call Neilson Powless to get his take. Neilson’s response was basically ‘I hate racing against him because he’s so savvy, but man he knows what he’s doing. I like him but I hate racing against him’. It was actually a really positive reaction from Neilson.”

Having a key rider on board is one thing, but Vaughters needed a great consensus. His next phone call was with Andreas Klier, the sports director behind a number of EF’s Classics performances, including Alberto Bettiol’s 2019 Tour of Flanders triumph.

“I then asked Andreas if he thought Rui could race Flanders, and he was super positive about the idea. I took that to João because Flanders has changed so much as a race in the last few years. It’s more about climbing than it used to be. I don’t think that João took that too seriously but Rui came back and said it was a total dream for him to one day race Flanders. We’re not overly focussed on Flanders but when you’re trying to fit all the pieces together, we’re a little bit light on the Classics for next year. Having a guy who could do Flanders adds in some extra horsepower. He was fourth in Strade too, and, like I said, it all came together.”

As for the question of age, Vaughters tried to look through the prism of the last couple of years before making the final call. Plenty of team managers have had their fingers burned by signing riders past their best or on the cusp of a major decline - Dani Moreno being a case in point at EF in 2018 - but Vaughters saw enough in both Rui Costa’s results and attitude to offer a one-year deal within a matter of days of talking to the rider.

“He’s so motivated. Straight after the Japan Cup he flew to our service course to get all the bike fit done and uniform fit. The dude is on it. He really wants to race. I’m super happy to have an experienced guy who is that hungry. It’s cool to see. With all the kids we’ve signed we needed someone to come in and basically show them how not to be nitwits,” Vaughters says.

“The major thing for me was the fact that with older riders you don’t typically see a steady decline. What you see is that something happens, illness or injury, and they lose momentum. And then the next year they’re dead in the water. But with Rui, he did two Grand Tours, won a stage in one of them, and had a really solid season with his health. He’s got the foundations to have another good year or two. So from there we decided to give it a go. When we finally decided to pull the trigger, it was ten days before the transfer was announced. The agreement was made on October 10, and the contract signed two days later. I’ve never had a rider signing go that fast. It’s nuts that the deal came together.”

Yet for all of Vaughters’ surprise and excitement, a deal has worked out. Rui Costa has a major shot at WorldTour glory at the age of 37, while EF Education-EasyPost have a rider capable of winning on almost all terrain. The veteran’s desire and motivation appear as strong as ever, and even if the results don’t flow, at least Neilson Powless has one less rider to worry about when it comes to next season’s objectives.