Frenchman Guillaume Martin will join Wanty-Groupe Gobert for the next two seasons. The 22-year old rider comes from the French team CC Etupes. 

“Wanty-Groupe Gobert contacted me in August. I spoke with general manager Jean-François Bourlart and was impressed by their race programme," Guillaume Martin explains.

Martin had a stellar season in the U23 category in 2015. The highlight of his season was winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège for U23-riders. He also won a mountain stage in de Tour de l'Avenir, the most important stage race in this category, and finished 10th in the overall.   

He feels at ease on hilly and mountaineous terrain which he proved by coming in fourth in the Tour de l'Isard. The young Frenchman already experienced the procyclist's life in his trainee period with FDJ in 2014. He showed this season with a twelfth place in de Tour de l'Ain he holds his own well in the current pro peloton.

This season Wanty-Groupe Gobert took part in WorldTour stage races like Volta a Catalunya and Tour de Suisse. These races fit the rider profile of Martin well. 

"Their race programme is great for young climbers like myself. Catalunya and Switzerland are very interesting races for me," Martin explains. "But of course I would also love to discover Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the pro category after I won the U23 version this season."

"This new generation of French riders of 21-22 years old has done very well in recent years. For the image of our team it's great to have such a rider onboard," sports director Sébastien Demarbaix says.

"If you have the option to sign a rider with a palmares in the U23-category like Guillaume's you must not let a chance like that go by. He will be part of the group of puncheurs/climbers for the Ardennes Classics and the harder stage races. We will not put any pressure on him to get results and monitor his progress and acclimatisation in the pro category closely," Demarbaix concludes.

After signing Björn Thurau, Dimitri Claeys, Kenny Dehaes, Thomas Degand, Robin Stenuit, Gaëtan Bille and Antoine Demoitié, Martin is the eighth new rider for the Belgian procontinental team.

With Marco Marcato, Roy Jans, Jérôme Baugnies, Kévin Van Melsen, Lander Seynaeve, Simone Antonini, Frederik Backaert and Tom Devriendt the team now has 16 confirmed names for 2016.