Vincenzo Nibali' contract with Astana expires at the end of the year. The Italian rider who will race the Tour de San Luis this week, has been linked to Trek. According to Cyclingnews, Lampre Merida has confirmed that Nibali’s agent has also opened negotiations with them.

"The negotiations have started between Nibali’s agents, the Carera brothers, there is interest from both sides", Brent Copeland explained. "For us, it would be a huge return on investment for both the two major sponsors of the team, Lampre and Merida, to have an Italian rider of Vincenzo’s quality on the only worldTour Italian team. We obviously have to respect the UCI transfer rules, regulations and times but for now I can confirm there is interest from both parties.

"Vincenzo is a rider who brings results in both Grand Tours as well as one-day classic races. This is a quality which is difficult to find in modern day cycling, thus it's the reason for even more interest, which we are putting into this project. As well as the fact that our future GC rider, youngster Louis Meintjes can only but learn from a talent such as Vincenzo, as well as our other hugely talented rider Diego Ulissi, who lives in the same town as Vincenzo, namely Lugano, and they can form a good combo on the team where they train together."