Yesterday the Australian Avanti team announced that their rider Jack Haig has signed a contract with Orica-GreenEDGE. Today the Australian WorldTour team has confirmed the signing of the stage race talent.

Bendigo rider Jack Haig has confirmed his bright future, signing with ORICA-GreenEDGE for the 2016 season.

The announcement comes as the 21-year-old joins the ORICA-GreenEDGE squad in Nagambie at the upcoming River and Ranges Winery Ride and team training camp from this Sunday, 23 November.

Haig, who rides for Continental outfit Avanti Racing and will join the under 23 Australian Academy after the local season in 2015, has impressed on the domestic and international stage in recent years and is a valuable addition to a very talented crop of young riders in the ORICA-GreenEDGE stable.

“My transitioning to ORICA-GreenEDGE will work really nicely with the WorldTour Academy, making it easy to get involved in things like the camp ahead of 2016,” Haig said.

“I was able to catch up with some of the guys while I was in Italy this year, Heppy (Michael Hepburn) did a race with us and I have seen some of the other guys around Victoria so I am really looking forward to meeting the rest of the team as well as seeing how it is all run to make the transition into being part of the team as smooth as possible by learning now.”

Haig will benefit from the professional structure and good atmosphere at ORICA-GreenEDGE and already has some serious general classification goals.

“I really want to enjoy my career, a lot of it is about having fun and having fun with it often comes with doing well," the 21-year-old continued.

“Ultimately, I want to try and get a couple of wins at pro level and I’d like to see myself as being a general classification contender in a stage race. That’s my biggest goal.”

Haig was a key member of the Australian team at one of the biggest under-23 races of the season – the Tour de l’Avenir – that saw teammate Robert Power take second overall and at the under-23 world championships, producing a silver medal for teammate Caleb Ewan.

In elite competition, Haig impressed with a third place overall behind future ORICA-GreenEDGE teammate Simon Clarke at the 2014 Jayco Herald Sun Tour and won the best under-23 rider in his WorldTour debut at the Tour Down Under having received the call up from wildcard outfit UniSA-Australia.

ORICA-GreenEDGE general manager Shayne Bannan is pleased to be able to add Haig to a high-regarded young contingent of riders expected to develop and achieve great results for the team in the future.

”Jack is a very obvious talent and a rider that we have been following for quite a while. He will join a very good structure as a neo-pro once after next year with the WorldTour Academy. He has a lot of potential and is a very versatile rider for his age already. I think we could see him up there in the stage races in the future,” said Bannan.

"First of all, he’ll make the transition to the pro ranks in good environment where we can help him develop his talent in the best possible way.”