Talented Joe Dombrowski was expected to fully develop his great potential after joining Team Sky in 2013, but health issues prevented him from performing in line with such expectations. It took no less than 18 months to eventually diagnose his problem correctly, but the British team won’t benefit from successful surgery of the 23-year old American as he will join Cannondale for 2015.

Jonathan Vaughters decided to gamble and signed a contract with Dombrowski being aware of his health issues, so the young American will ride for Cannondale next year. Team Sky rider admitted that despite not making his surgery a secret many teams emphasized their interest in signing him for the 2015 season.

“I had a number of different options. It was a bit of difficult timing, in terms of doing my contract this time around. I had planned in advance, early in the year, to get everything sorted out in regards to what I’d being doing next year,” Dombrowski confirmed while speaking to VeloNews.

“It was right after the Tour de Suisse when I flew to London to see what was going on with my leg, and that’s when I found out I had the problem, and it was like, “Well I know I have this problem, and now I’m trying to talk to these teams …” Of course, I had to tell people about the surgery and my injury, but teams were still interested. I guess my injury was a much more common issue in the professional peloton than I had initially realized, so maybe some teams saw me as a risky move, but I still had a bunch of options, like Garmin.”

Explaining his decision to join Cannondale, the 23-year old rider pointed out to his relatively warm relation with Garmin-Sharp manager Jonathan Vaughters and his will to ride for an American outfit again.

“I had spoken with [Jonathan] Vaughters before I went to Sky actually, but at the time I went with my gut, which was Sky. But I already had a relationship with Vaughters and we’ve loosely kept in contact and he was happy to take me on, even with my health issues.”

“I think it’s a good fit for me. It will be nice to be a part of an American team, with American riders. I met some great people at Sky, but it is definitely a team full of great GC riders, which is fine, I don’t mind being part of the team role, but the attractive thing about Garmin is that it seems that they might have some opportunities for me and it will be a comfortable and fun environment where I think I can really thrive.”

Even though his two year’s at Sky couldn’t be called successful, Dombrowski admitted that he still has learned a lot while riding in the outfit managed by Dave Brailsford. He also once again emphasized that the British squad has one of the best developed background to support their athletes in everyday training.

“Also, as I was saying before, there are a lot of great riders on Sky, so being able to work with these guys and learning different roles within the team has been great.”

“Another thing, Sky has a pretty extensive support network in terms of training and things like that. So there are a lot of takeaways there for me, in terms of what works and what doesn’t work.”