Pooley won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was the 2010 time-trial world champion, while at this year's London Games she helped Great Britain team-mate Lizzie Armitstead to silver in the road race.

Pooley was looking at having to take an extended break from cycling and concentrate on continuing to finish a doctorate in geotechnical engineering, with her former team AA Drink-leontien.nl set to disband at the end of this season due to a lack of financial support.

However, the 30-year-old is now excited by the prospect of joining Bigla while continuing to study in the off-season, with Pooley telling British
Cycling: "I'm looking forward to this new challenge and I'll do my best to help the young riders on the Bigla team to make the step up.

"I've raced against a lot of them in local races in Switzerland and I can see how talented they are," Pooley said.

"We will be a force to be reckoned with in 2013," she said.

"Next year will be different for me than the last few years, because I'll be spending the winter studying to finish my PhD (. . .) that will mean a slower start to the season.

"But Bigla will give me plenty of racing opportunities, some fun new challenges, and also the freedom to focus a bit on my own goals in the time trial," Pooley added.