XDS-Astana to sign Chinese rider as Gleb Syritsa dropped to development team
Haoyu Su joins Kazakh WorldTour team from China Glory-Mentech on two-year contract
Young Chinese racer Haoyu Su will step up to the WorldTour in 2025 after signing for XDS-Astana, according to reports.
Before the team made this move, their full quota of thirty riders for the season was already filled. Therefore, sprinter Gleb Syritsa has been demoted to the team’s development squad.
The team that was known as Astana Qazaqstan in 2024 has received major Chinese investment ahead of 2025. XDS, a Chinese bike brand, have come on board as main title sponsor and the team will ride X-LAB bikes. XDS-Astana will remain a Kazakh-registered team with the UCI.
Su joins the team after two seasons racing for China Glory-Mentech. He is one of China’s most promising young talents and impressed in several breakaways at the 2023 Tour of Guangxi.
Read more: China Glory-Mentech announce 2025 squad with WorldTour additions
Su’s best results in 2024 include fourth at the Chinese national TT championships, 5th on a stage of the Tour of Thailand while finishing 20th overall and 11th at the Grand Prix Syedra Ancient City in Türkiye. Not results which would usually have WorldTour teams knocking on the door, but at 24 Su may have some room for improvement.
XDS-Astana released a statement confirming Syritsa’s transfer to the development team on Monday.
“During our December training camp, we conducted individual meetings with each rider to refine their race calendars and set goals for the season. As a result, Gleb Syritsa will move to our Continental team. This decision aligns with the interests of both the team and the rider,” General Manager Alexander Vinokourov said.
News of Su’s transfer seems to have been broken through the Procyclingstats transfer page. No official announcement has yet been made.
The move has been confirmed to Global Peloton by a reliable source and will be announced in the coming days.
Su will become the first Chinese men’s WorldTour rider since Meiyin Wang raced for Bahrain-Merida in 2019. He was preceded by the likes of Xu Gang and Cheng Ji, the latter of whom is thought of as the best Chinese road cyclist ever, having been a reliable domestique for ten years for the team to be known as Team Picnic-Post NL in 2025.
Su would not have been the obvious Chinese pick for a rider to step up to the WorldTour. Others such as his China Glory-Mentech team-mates Xianjng Lyu and Binyan Ma, the only Chinese riders ever to win UCI races in Europe, may be considered better options. However, Global Peloton understands that only Su was approached by XDS-Astana.
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Increasingly don’t understand the idea of global peleton..what’s really tiny niche sport based in Western Europe doesn’t seem to scale worldwide into our times ..it’s a sport based on a few teams a few events…and really only handful of participants from other countries..there isn’t a structure to organise things, manage doping..racing in Africa makes no sense amidst corruption, lack of democracy..am struggling with reality that global cycling is concommitant with state greenwashing…off the topic maybe…but bike racing is so specific to a certain euro culture- say CX and drunk Belgians ..anyway..I enjoy your posts..