Juan Manuel Garate (1976) will return to professional cycling as a sports director at the Cannondale Pro Cycling Team of Jonathan Vaughters from next season.

Professional between 2000 and 2014, Garate will return to the WorldTour in a new role as Vaughters, General Manager of Cannondale (Cannondale-Garmin in 2015), has chosen the Basque as one of his future sports directors, according to Spanish website BiciwCiclismo. The official announcement will be coming soon.

Garate won a stage in the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France at Mont Ventoux  and the Vuelta a Espana, was Spanish champion in 2005 and finished fourth in the 2002 Giro and fifth in the 2005 Vuelta.

He has no less than 26 Grand Tours in his legs while riding for Lampre (2000-2004), Saunier Duval (2005), QuickStep (2006-2008), Rabobank (2009-2012) and Belkin (2013-2014). His farewell, however, was bitter due to the dispute he had with Belkin that kept him out of racing during 2014 because of a conflict with the Spanish Social Security.

Garate maintained his links to cycling and this year he was the voice of Radio Tour at the Vuelta a Espana.

Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quick Step), Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Matti Breschel (Saxo-Tinkoff), Lawson Craddock (Team Giant-Alpecin), Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge), Phil Gaimon (Team Optum), Patrick Bevin (Avanti), Ryan Mullen (An Post), Wouter Wippert (Drapac), Michael Woods (Optum) and Toms Skujins (Hincapie Racing) are the 11 new signings at Cannondale for next season.