New Zealander Jesse Sergent (1988, Trek Factory Racing) will spend he next two seasons with AG2R La Mondiale. He completes the French team for 2016.

Cyril Gautier (Team Europcar) and François Bidard (neo-pro) are the other two additions to the French team that has finalized its roster. Romain Bardet, Domenico Pozzovivo and veteran Jean-Christophe Péraud are leaders of a team that also has talents like Alexis Gougeard Pierre Latour and Alexis Vuillermoz.

A promising track and U23 rider, Sergent (1.89m, 76 kilos) grew up atTrek Livestrong before making the move to RadioShack (2010-2013). He has been at Trek Factory Racing in the last two seasons.

At only 23 years of age, she won two stage races, Tour du Poitou Charentes and Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen and a stage of the Eneco Tour. However, he has not had the expected progression. In 2014, he won a stage of the Tour of Austria and only Malori was faster in the final time trial of the Vulta a Espana. This season has been hampered by a bad crash after he was knocked down by a Shimano car in the Tour of Flanders.

In the velodrome, he won an Olympic bronze medal in Beijing and in London in the team pursuit, while he took silver in the individual pursuit at the 2010 and 2011 Worlds, beaten by Taylor Phinney and Jack Bobridge respectively.

"I’m excited to be joining Ag2r for the next two seasons and I would like to thank Vincent Lavenu for the opportunity to be racing with his team," he said. "Ag2r La Mondiale Pro Cycling Team is known for its aggressive, attacking, never-give-up style of racing and I am looking forward to being a part of that. I hope to continue to grow as a rider and to keep targeting time trials and shorter stage races, and helping the leaders on the team to achieve results as it is something I enjoy. I’m looking forward to the challenge."

"He is a rouleur and a classics rider and he will strengthen our team in this field. It’s the first time a rider from New Zealand joins our team," manager Vincent Lavenu said.