Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies rider Lorenzo Finn sealed the overall title at the Giro Next Gen on Sunday by winning the stage 8 time trial, adding to the lead he gained winning on stage 8.

Finn, who became under-23 road race world champion at only 18 last September in Rwanda, won stage 6 atop Monte Livata to move into the pink jersey, and then confirmed his win by triumphing in the final-stage time trial on Sunday.

He beat Adam Rafferty (Hagens Berman Jayco) by 15 seconds over the 22km course to win the GC by 2:10, having won stage 6 by 52 seconds and finished third on stage 7.

Despite the race finishing with a TT, the final day didn't actually shake up the podium at all, with the final three the same as it had been in the morning. Colombia's Mateo Ramírez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) finished second after a consistent end to the week, whilst Brazil's Henrique Bravo (Soudal-QuickStep) held on for third despite only finishing 16th in the TT.

Stage 7 winner Aubin Sparfel (Decathlon CMA CGM Development) climbed up the standings with a strong TT, but just missed out on the podium, settling for fourth.

The Giro Next Gen, formerly known as the Baby Giro, is run by RCS and is the under-23 version of the Giro d'Italia, running across eight days. It is contested by trade teams, not national outfits, and along with the Tour de l'Avenir is considered one of the most important development races on the calendar.

Former overall winners of the race include Tom Pidcock, Juan Ayuso and Jarno Widar, so if Finn's talent wasn't already clear and well-known, he's definitely added his name to the list of future Grand Tour stars now.

Other winners across the week in Italy, which featured sprint days, a TT, and two big climbing days, included fellow Red Bull Rookie Davide Donati and Matisse Van Kerckhove, who stepped up to the Visma-Lease a Bike WorldTour team early this year but was back riding with the development squad this weekend.

Ineos Grenadiers Racing Academy rider Mattie Dodd won the mountains classification, whilst Donati sealed the points jersey. The youth classification, in which only first-year U23 riders are eligible for, was won by Movistar's Javier Cubillas.

Giro Next Gen 2026 stage winners

Results

Results powered by FirstCycling

Under 23 world champion Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull–Bora Hansgrohe Rookies) is the standout favourite for the Giro Next Gen that begins on Sunday June 14 and again promises to showcase some of the best young riders in the sport who are about to turn professional.

The eight-day stage race is the last of the three Giro d'Italia organised by RCS Sport after the men's Giro d'Italia in May won by Jonas Vingegaard and the more recent Giro d'Italia Women won by Demi Vollering.

The Under 23 race includes 1088 kilometres of racing and more than 14,000 metres of elevation gain. The stages are all in the south of Italy this year, with the start in Reggio Calabria near Sicily and the finish on June 21 in L’Aquila with a decisive 22.2km individual time trial.

The opening stages suit the sprinters and breakaways before the mountain stages in the Apennines to Monte Livata and Piana delle Mele on stages six and seven.

Slovenia's Jakob Omrzel won the 2025 Giro Next Gen ahead of Australia's Luke Tuckwell. Both have stepped up to WorldTour level this year with Bahrain Victorious and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

Anglo-Italian Finn, 19, opted to stay in the Under 23 ranks another season but has raced with the WorldTour team several times. He is considered a future rival of Paul Seixas and Omrzel in stage races and Italy's next great talent.

Other riders to watch for at the Giro Next Gen include Daan Dijkman, the winner of the U23 Liège–Bastogne–Liège; Frenchman Remi Daumas, who impressed at the Ronde de l’Isard; Belgian Kamiel Eeman, winner of the Course de la Paix; and his compatriot Matisse Van Kerckhove, who won the Alpes Isère Tour.

Stage hunters include 2025 points jersey winner Aubin Sparfel (Decathlon CMA CGM Development) and 2025 stage winners Adam Rafferty (Hagens Berman Jayco) of Ireland and his compatriot Seth Dunwoody (Bahrain Victorious Development), U23 Paris–Roubaix winner Davide Donati (Red Bull–Bora Hansgrohe Rookies) and the likes of Davide Stella, Jack Ward, Patryk Goszczurny and Cameron Rogers.

Finn impressed at the Tour of the Alps while riding with the Red Bull–Bora Hansgrohe team but then crashed and fractured his wrist. He underwent surgery and has recently trained at altitude with his teammates to be ready for the Giro Next Gen.

"Thanks to surgery I recovered quickly and don't have any problems on the bike," Finn told BiciPro.

"If everything goes to plan, I should peak for the start of the Giro and then we'll see what happens. I think I've improved every year and this year I feel stronger. I haven't raced for a while but my training has gone well."

"We’ve analysed the route carefully and the structure of the stages is a bit different from last year," explained the two-time world champion.

"The last three days will be decisive for the general classification, with the final time trial playing a crucial role, and I’m preparing thoroughly for that. It will also be interesting to see who manages fatigue best towards the end of the race. If everything goes according to plan, I should be in top form for the start of the Giro."

Finn crashed during the 2025 Giro Next Gen and finished sixth overall before going on to take fourth at the Tour de L'Avenir behind Seixas. He won the U23 world title in Rwanda with a solo attack and was also fourth in the time trial.

He will have a similar race programme this summer and ride more races with the Red Bull–Bora Hansgrohe team before stepping up to WorldTour level in 2027.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Tour de Suisse coverage. Don't miss any of the breaking news, race analysis, and expert insight as the riders make their final preparations for Le Tour. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Join today.

New Colorado legislation called 'Magnus' Law', named for 17-year-old cyclist Magnus White who was killed by an impaired driver of a car nearly three years ago, was signed on Thursday by Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

The state bill, SB26-132, now requires law enforcement officials to offer a voluntary alcohol breath test to drivers of motor vehicles who are involved in crashes – between vehicles, or a bike or pedestrian and a vehicle – that result in death or injury.

When White was struck and killed on a mid-day training ride near Boulder, Colorado on July 30, 2023, the responding officer did not conduct a breath test on the driver, Yeva Smilianska, who was 20 months later found guilty of reckless vehicular homicide.

A five-day trial concluded on April 5, 2025, and jurors determined that she had been drinking alcohol with a friend throughout the night and early morning, which was a factor in the 24-year-old driver falling asleep while driving.

"Today we took action to keep Coloradans safer on our roads. This law honors the legacy of Magnus White, and turns tragedy to action so less families have to endure the heartbreak that the White family has faced," Governor Polis said in a statement.

White had been training for the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Glasgow, where he planned to represent Team USA in the men's junior cross-country race on August 10.

"It took 20 months for the truth to come out in a courtroom. 20 months to find out why our son was dead. The only person tested for drugs or alcohol that day was Magnus. The person who killed him was not," said Michael White, father of Magnus, in a report posted by Colorado Public Radio from a ceremony held at Valmont Bike Park, where his son used to ride.

"There's only one person responsible for my son's death. Gaps in the system are responsible for the 20 months it took to find out. But one question at the scene could have told us that afternoon."

SB26-132, Voluntary Alcohol Breath Test, was sponsored by Senators Dylan Roberts and John Carson, and Representatives Junie Joseph and Matt Soper.

The family created The White Line Foundation after Magnus' death, advocating to make roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

"This law helps ensure no family is left wondering whether impairment was fully investigated after a serious injury or death on our roads. Some may ask, if a driver refuses an impairment test, what’s the point? Here’s what we want you to understand: law enforcement can still secure DUI convictions even when a driver refuses the test," The White Line Foundation posted to social media after the governor's signature made the bill a law.

"The real problem — and what happened the day Magnus was killed — isn’t drivers refusing. It’s law enforcement not even investigating impairment in the first place.

"Magnus’ Law is designed to close that gap. When a serious injury or death occurs on our roads, law enforcement is now required to investigate for impairment — whether it’s a car-on-car, or a driver versus a vulnerable road user crash. No family should ever have to wonder whether that question was even asked."

Smilianska, now 25, was sentenced to four years. On Wednesday, she was sentenced to 364 days in jail, with 132 days' credit for time served, for an unrelated misdemeanour theft case in Longmont, Colorado, according to the ABC TV affiliate in Denver.

It's very nearly time for the first women's Grand Tour of the year and the start of stage racing season. We've already had a ton of exciting racing through the Spring Classics, and some thrilling breakthrough performances, but as we swap cobbles for mountains, there are opportunities for new types of riders to shine.

For several seasons, women's stage racing has been dominated by a small crop of riders – Demi Vollering, Marlen Reusser, Elisa Longo Borghini – but below the big names, there is a new and talented generation of riders coming up.

This will be one of the first generations of female cyclists who have turned pro in the post-Tour de France Femmes world, where being a full time cyclist is now a viable, paying career choice, and the racing and performance is improving rapidly.

We're yet to see a new generation rider really explode onto the Grand Tour scene – though young riders have certainly made their mark in the Classics and other races – but it's only a matter of time until a new name, or names, joins the upper echelon of stage racers in the women's peloton. That could be as a new GC challenger, a pure climber, or just a rider who excels in multi-day racing.

There's plenty of stage racing to come this season, but next week's Vuelta Femenina should offer the first chance for these future stars to lay down their intentions and talents for 2026. With the race getting underway on Sunday, here are some riders we've picked out as ones to watch in Spain.

Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi)

Spain's Usoa Ostolaza is a rider who has quietly been becoming one of the very best GC riders and climbers on the lower-level circuit, but is yet to quite break through on the WorldTour level. So whilst dedicated women's cycling fans will absolutely already know her talent and ability, she's not yet on everyone's radar – a big result at the Vuelta Femenina would change that.

Ostolaza, 28, is a former Spanish national champion who has been racing since 2021 but has really skyrocketed in the last few years. Her climbing credentials are already extremely impressive, with wins atop the Col d'Aubisque and Col du Soulor on her way to back to back Tour des Pyrénées titles, and she's finished just outside the top 10 of both the Vuelta and the Giro d'Italia Women before.

This year, she looks primed to crack that top 10, and even win a stage. Still a ProTeam, Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi have taken a big step up this year in terms of performance, meaning Ostolaza will come to this race with her strongest support squad yet. What's more, the lack of top stars like Vollering and Reusser is set to leave the race very open, and therefore the perfect opportunity for a rider like Ostolaza to grab the big result she's very clearly capable of.

Valentina Cavallar (SD Worx-Protime)

Valentina Cavallar's off-season transfer to SD Worx-Protime has started quietly, as she's only raced once so far in 2026, at last week's Flèche Wallonne, but she'll be back into her preferred terrain at the Vuelta next week. Like Ostolaza, Cavallar is a rider who has already proven her climbing ability, but is just waiting for that big, high profile result or win.

More of a pure climber, lightweight riders like Cavallar don't always translate to also being top GC riders, given all the other challenges in stage races, but the route of this Vuelta is climb heavy and will come down to the final weekend of mountains, rather than being influenced by a TT or flat stages. As a result, a rider like Cavallar has a real opportunity to shine, whether that's on her own or in support of teammate Anna van der Breggen.

It may have been a quiet start to life at SD Worx, but she's one of their riders for the future, and her career as a top rider starts here.

Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ)

It may be pushing it to call Paula Blasi an up and coming rider, given she just won Amstel Gold Race and then impressed in the rest of the Ardennes too, but it's going to be really exciting to see how her clearly strong form translates in a stage race – somewhere she's shown a lot of promise before.

It was slightly overshadowed by the GPS trackers debacle, but Blasi took her first WorldTour win last year in the opening uphill time trial of the Tour de Romandie, and she is definitely a potential GC rider.

Still only 23, Blasi has hit a sparkling run of form this year, kicking off with third at the Tour Down Under and following up top-fives in all three Ardennes Classics. Of course, the climbs of the Vuelta are a big step up from the Ardennes hills, but her sixth place at the Tour de l'Avenir shows she's strong in the mountains too.

Blasi will share leadership with Mavi Garcia in Spain, and if things keep clicking for UAE Team ADQ the way they have recently, both riders could be in for some big success.

Sarah Van Dam (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Like Blasi, Sarah Van Dam has arguably already made her mark on the peloton this spring, but she has a chance to show how her one-day ability – which earnt her seventh in Amstel and 13th in Liège-Bastogne-Liège among other great results – can translate over a stage race.

With riders like Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos in the Visma line-up, Van Dam might have to fight for opportunities, but if she gets a chance on one of the breakaway-friendly stages, she could secure a big result. She certainly has GC contender potential too, already fifth in the Tour Down Under this year.

Titia Ryo (Human Powered Health)

France's Titia Ryo was the second-best young rider at the Tour de France Femmes last summer, but is still flying under the radar in the peloton as a climber.

She'll line up as part of a varied Human Powered Health team seeking opportunities in Spain, and could definitely take an opportunity to show off her climbing, and indeed maybe chase the young rider's jersey here, too.

Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset (Uno-X Mobility)

Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset is one of the older riders on this list at 27, but some riders find their best form later in life, and that seems like it could be the case for her.

The Norwegian stepped up from Continental level to the WorldTour only this year, after clearly impressing Uno-X on the lower-level circuit, and she's taken to the elite peloton really well. She was challenging for top 10s in the Mallorca Challenge, then took 15th at Strade Bianche, and 17th at Liege, noticeably one of the new names mixing in with the established climbers on several occasions this season.

A Grand Tour will be another challenge – she's done the Vuelta and the Tour before – but her climbing ability is really strong and she could place herself on a lot of people's radars here.

Other riders to watch

Visma are bringing a stacked team so it might be hard to grab opportunities, but both climber Marion Bunel and rouleur Imogen Wolff will be motivated to chase rewards where they see them.

At the time of writing, it's not clear if Eleonora Ciabocco (Picnic PostNL) will be back in action after her Trofeo Alfredo Binda crash, but if she is, the UAE Tour top 10 finisher started the year really strong and is growing into a serious contender.

Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi's line-up is packed full of exciting riders. As well as Ostoloza, keep an eye on Idoia Eraso and Tiril Jørgensen.

Mayenne Monbana My Pie will be challenged in a Grand Tour, but look out for Justine Gegu and Alice Coutinho who have been strong for the French team.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our La Vuelta Femenina coverage as the likes of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and others battle it out. Don't miss any of the breaking news, reports, and analysis from one of the biggest women's stage races of the season. Find out more.

Belgian Under-23 rider Milan Bral died Sunday after he was struck by a driver of a vehicle while on a training ride in Ronse. He was taken to a hospital in Ghent, where he later died in the evening due to his injuries, according to a report by Wielerflits.

"It is with great sadness that we have to say goodbye to our racer and teammate Milan Bral. After his serious accident, during training this afternoon, he was unfortunately unable to win his fight. He died in the hospital, surrounded by his loved ones," his club team, Dovy Keukens-FCC Cycling, posted to Instagram a day ago.

It is cycling's second tragedy in the space of one week, after Camilo Muñoz died of an infection of wounds sustained in a crash during the Tour de Jura.

Bral, 21, was riding near the Hotond at the intersection of Kruisstraat and Zandstraat in Ronse when he was struck by a driver. News of his death came late on Sunday evening.

Bral was the nephew of former pro rider, Soudal-Quickstep sports director Sep Vanmarcke. Bral was the son of Vanmarcke's sister. His younger brother, Xibe, also races.

Xibe memorialised his older brother in a post to Instagram, writing, "Milan, I will miss you so much because I really looked up to you, but you probably already knew that....

"I will do everything this season to point to the sky for you. I remember well when you got angry at me because I almost fell in off a cliff in Mallorca; you thought you had lost me and said you didn’t want to lose me. Look now, now I have lost you and can’t do anything I would like to do to bring you back. Milan always told me a quote 'DREAM F*CKING BIG' and I will definitely do that. Milan, rest peacefully up there my best big brother, I will miss you."

Vanmarcke also posted an emotional description about their last conversation on Saturday morning to Instagram. Bral had asked his uncle about equipment selection for an upcoming race, the U23 Gent-Wevelgem on May 10.

"I don't know where to start, where to end. I don't want it to end. But it is like that. The only thing I've said in the last 24 hours is 'Damn it, Milan. That is impossible. Surely not you','” Vanmarcke began his post (in Flemish), on Instagram.

"Yesterday morning before your final training you came to us, asking which tyres and wheels you choose best for Gent-Wevelgem, or you would swap out the cassette. Next week we will put some new sealant in the tyres, just to be safe.

"And so much [enthusiasm] in that [Belgian Championships] time trial, fully fired up for the race, and for life itself, as always! Not half measures. Giving it absolutely everything.

"It comes to mind a lot... I wish I had kept you busy a little longer. A minute was enough. Then you might have been at the crossroads a little later. Maybe that car was already over by then.

"I wish I had cycled with you a bit more, and came to watch your races a bit more. 'Too busy', but now I wish for some extra time with you. I can't change it anymore."

The 21-year-old Bral was 16th at the U23 Belgium Nationals road race, and this year has top 10s in the West Flanders Championships in the U23 time trial and elite road race. This year he was racing for a long-established Belgian club team.

"Milan was so much more than a racer for us. He was a great guy, a real teammate, someone who was always there for others and had a warm, important place in our team. He was loved by all and will be greatly missed. Milan will remain a part of our team forever," the team said on their post.

"Our thoughts are with his family, friends and all who loved him. We wish them all the strength and warmth in this particularly difficult time."

Following his stage victory in the Presidential Tour of Turkey, Tom Crabbe (Flanders-Baloise) remembered Bral.

"It really affects me," Crabbe said to Wielerflits.be. "I think that just shows that as cyclists we are always vulnerable, especially in traffic. I think that demonstrates once again that you simply have to be super careful and that perhaps even more attention needs to be paid to safety on the bike.

"Not only during the races, but also in training. That is perhaps something that is often forgotten, but is at least as important. And that is very sad news when it came in."

Cyclingnews extends our deepest condolences to the Bral family, the Vanmarcke family, the Dovy Keukens-FCC team and the Belgian cycling community.

German rider Moritz Mauss underwent emergency career-saving surgery to remove a 50cm (20in) splinter of wood from his hip this week following a crash at the International Belgian Track Meeting on Sunday.

The 18-year-old, who rides for the UAE Team Emirates Gen-Z development squad, was competing in the Madison in the Gent track cycling event when he crashed, sliding across the wooden track.

As a result, splinters of wood from the track lodged in his leg, including a half-metre-long piece in his hip.

Writing in an Instagram post on Wednesday, Mauss said that he underwent surgery within hours of the crash, adding that he was "only a few centimetres" away from "a career-ending injury.

"I thought about sharing this post for the last few days, but I think it is important to also show these sides of the journey and the sport," Mauss wrote.

"On Sunday, I crashed in the Madison race at the International Track Meeting in Gent. During my fall, I slid across the track, and a 50cm long piece of wood splintered from the track and went directly through my hip and upper left leg.

"I was taken directly to the hospital and had surgery only about two hours after the accident. Everything went smoothly, and I am already back home now.

"I got really lucky because the splinter missed my nerves and most of my leg muscles. I will be out for a while now, but it could have been A LOT worse. Only a few centimetres could have meant a career-ending injury."

It isn't the first time a track racer has been impaled by a piece of the wooden track surface. In 2011, Malaysian sprinter Azizulhasni Awang had a 23cm (9-inch) sliver pierce his lower left leg after a crash during the Manchester Track World Cup.

Then, in 2019, Italian junior Lorenzo Gobbo - also racing at the Eddy Merckx velodrome in Gent - underwent three hours of surgery to have a 50cm splinter removed from his hip.

Mauss, who this year has 25 road race days under his belt, including appearances at Paris-Roubaix Espoirs and Liège-Bastogne-Liège Under-23, is riding his first season in the under-23 ranks after moving on from the German Junior Racing Team last season.

He finished 9th in the junior road race at the Rwanda World Championships last September, while his top result so far in 2026 is third on stage 1 of the Istrian Spring Tour.

Mauss didn't specify a timeframe for a comeback from his freak injury, though he concluded on a positive note, writing that "I am certain there is still a lot more to come this season.

"Thanks for the amazing support from my national team and the people at the hospital," Mauss added.

"I am really grateful to be in such good hands and to have so many supportive and loving people around me!!!

"Among all the wonderful moments this year and everything this sport has already brought me, those low points are also part of it. We have to accept what happened, and I will make the best of it.

"The work I have put in over the last few months is definitely not lost, and I am certain there is still a lot to come this season. Time to enjoy some unexpected days off the bike now."

Katherine 'Katia' Sarkisov grew up racing bicycles in Maryland, her younger sister Alyssa tagging along most of the time. At the age of 10, she raced in the 11-12 and 11-14 age categories in cyclocross and road events because there were no races for younger riders. Two years later, she was consistently winning those same races.

The family has roots in Russia, and her parents taught her to speak Russian before English. But she is very much an all-American girl. As a 12-year-old, she had a bronze-medal sweep at USA Cycling Amateur Road Nationals in the time trial, road race and criterium.

Then, at age 13, she won her first US junior women's title, beginning a string of success at cyclocross nationals. Now at the ripe old age of 22, the elder of the Sarkisov sisters has 17 medals across junior, U23, elite and collegiate races at cyclocross and road national championships.

From the Lux Development squad in 2022, she moved to Cynisca Cycling and then CCB p/b Levine Law Group. During that time, she rode for CXD Trek Bikes for cyclocross, winning the U23 gold medal at the 2024 US Cyclocross Nationals in a memorable collision with Cassidy Hickey just metres away from the finish line.

In 2025, she surpassed that by earning a bronze medal in the elite women's road race at USPro Championships, finishing just two seconds behind winner Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) and Lauren Stephens (Aegis). "Walked in with few expectations, walked away with some hardware. Hard to put it into words how much this third place means to me," she wrote on social media after standing on the podium next to the two veterans.

Sarkisov shared with Cyclingnews her desire to race any surface, having a sister on the same teams for multiple disciplines and using the most recent winter 'off' time to launch her career off the bike.

Cyclingnews: Tell us about where you grew up in the US and how you first discovered cycling.

Katherine Sarkisov: I grew up in Maryland, which has a big cycling community and a great Mid-Atlantic race scene. My dad has loved cycling for most of his life, and he introduced me to the sport when I was about 10 years old. He signed me up for a local youth club where I was surrounded by other kids my age, and for my first few years in the sport, I almost always trained and raced alongside riders from my area. It made getting into racing fun and easy to enjoy from a young age.

CN: Your sister Alyssa, three years younger, is a teammate with you for 'cross and now road, in 2026 with CCB Kenetik p/b Levine Law Group, so have the two of you always been friends, or do you just ride bikes together?

KS: When we were younger, we definitely bickered and fought quite a lot, but as we’ve grown up, that’s completely changed, and now I can honestly say my sister is one of my closest friends. We share so many similar experiences and can relate to each other on so much, both in cycling and outside of it. Whenever we’re together, we make time to hang out, whether that’s riding or just hanging out. I see her less often now that she’s moved to Indiana for school, but we always make time to call and catch up on everyday life.

CN: There is a lot of cyclocross in the mid-Atlantic states, so did you get hooked on 'cross first, and then move to road?

KS: I started out racing with Rock Creek Velo, a youth team that supports both road and cyclocross, so from the beginning I was doing both disciplines and racing year-round. For younger riders, it was centred around group practices, and as we got older, we were paired with a coach who provided more tailored training. It was incredible to have that level of support from a largely parent and volunteer-run organization. During my time with the team, I won my first cyclocross national title in Reno.

The following season, I joined CXD-Trek Bikes for cyclocross and have been with the team ever since. That program has played a huge role in my development, not just in cyclocross but as an overall athlete. They’ve supported me through both strong seasons and more challenging ones, and having that consistency over the years has meant a lot. It’s a team that truly invests in long-term growth, and being part of that environment has helped shape who I am as a rider today.

CN: You earned your first US national championship medals when you were 12 years old, earning bronze medals in all three road events you entered - criterium, road race and time trial. What made that special for you?

KS: I have really fond memories of that Nationals. At the time, earning my first podium medals felt incredibly exciting and memorable, and I was just over the moon to come home with them. That experience sparked a lot of motivation and excitement for racing, and it’s what kept me coming back to the sport, wanting to chase more moments like that.

CN: You earned your first gold medal at US Nationals in the cyclocross discipline when you were 14, and also won big 'cross races at Charm City Cross and DCCX. Did you feel like you wanted to focus more on 'cross with this success?

KS: I don’t think I ever really favoured one discipline over the other. From the beginning, I raced year-round, with cyclocross in the fall and road in the spring and summer, and that rhythm has stayed pretty consistent. I enjoy having goals to work toward throughout the year, and the off-season has usually been a time to focus on school and now work before the racing calendar picks back up again.

CN: What are your top 3 favourite memories so far as a junior/U23?

KS: One of my favourite memories is racing in my first Cyclocross World Championships in Fayetteville. At the time, I didn’t fully appreciate how special it was to compete at a world championship on home soil, but looking back, the atmosphere and the support for Team USA made it unforgettable. Another highlight was earning my first European podium at GP Sven Nys Baal as a junior. And finally, this past season’s elite cyclocross nationals stand out; my sister and I both made the podium, which made the moment incredibly special.

CN: Oh yes, you and your sister competed in the elite women's field at US Cyclocross Nationals last December, you at age 21 and Alyssa at just 18. Tell us about why you raced in the elite division, where you missed the gold medal by one second.

KS: There were a few factors behind my decision to race the elite field at USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships last year. I knew that on a good day, I could contend for the elite jersey, and after winning the U23 title the year before, I decided to go for the elite jersey instead. I didn’t feel amazing at the start of the race, but my legs really came around toward the end, and I was able to get moving. By then, it was just a bit too late to close the gap, and I finished second. My younger sister, Alyssa Sarkisov, finished third in the same race. It was hard to be disappointed in the race much at all because I got to stand on the podium with my sister.

CN: By 2023, you were racing with Cynisca and earned your first international podium in France at Tour de Charente-Maritime, a 98km road race after a morning ITT. Did you come away with new impressions about the European peloton and sharpened skills?

KS: Racing with Cynisca Cycling in Europe gave me a lot of valuable new experiences. The European peloton races differently, and simply being in that environment helped me learn what it takes to perform in Europe. The racing was much more aggressive and physical than what I was used to, so it definitely came with a learning curve.

CN: In 2025, you competed in a unique doubleheader at USPro Road Nats - women's U23 road race and then women's elite road race. You improved from fourth in the U23 event to third in the elite race, too. Did the U23 race give you insights into the course and how to race the elites? What was most special to you about the elite race?

KS: The dynamic of the U23 race was quite different from the elite race, but it was still really valuable to get a feel for the course ahead of time. I hadn’t originally planned to race the elite event, and it was only about an hour after the U23 race that I decided to line up again. The U23 race didn’t quite go the way I’d hoped, so I saw the elite race as another opportunity and went in without many expectations. I was mostly just hoping to improve on my result from the previous year when the U23s raced with the elites.

Ending up on the elite podium was far from what I imagined going into the day, which made it incredibly special. The next day, I learned that the result also qualified me for the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda, which was the perfect cherry on top of the whole experience.

CN: Now on your second road season with the CCB Kenetik team, what do you see as your best skills on the road, and what do you hope to learn with your CCB team?

KS: I think my strongest skills on the road are my race intelligence and my ability to read and analyze a race. This season with CCB, I’m looking forward to developing in several areas, especially improving my pack positioning in bigger races. I’m also excited to learn from our DS, Megan Guarnier, whose experience and success as a racer provide an incredible opportunity to grow this season.

CN: This year started well at the Redlands Cycling Classic, with fifth overall. Tell us what made that race special.

KS: I was really happy to come away with two podiums and the white jersey at the Redlands. It was my first race of the season, so it felt great to start the year off strong and build some confidence early on.

Redlands is one of my favourite US races. The town does an amazing job putting on the event, and the host housing is such a special part of the experience because it gives you the chance to meet and connect with people in the local community. Over the years, I’ve stayed with several different host families, and each one has played a big role in making my Redlands experience so positive and memorable.

CN: Tell us what you do off the bike, especially since you completed studies at the University of Maryland.

KS: Most recently, after the Cyclocross World Championships, I used the off-season to start my first full-time job, taking advantage of the downtime from training to get into the flow of work and be ready to balance it once the road season began. In December 2025, I started working as a software engineer for a defense contractor. Software development has always been a passion of mine, and it’s what I see as my long-term career, even if I step away for a period of time to race professionally.

CN: Other than being good at racing bikes, what are two things that would surprise people about you?

KS: Two things that might surprise people about me are that I have been a plant mom for eight years and currently keep 13 plants in my room, though I have had as many as 20 in previous years, and that Russian was my first language.

It's not often that sixth-place and seventh-place finishes get noticed, but when you are Enzo Hincapie and fighting for top spots at junior editions of Paris-Roubaix and E3 Saxo Classic, these results signal the wins are close.

Hincapie, the oldest child of retired WorldTour pro George Hincapie, made significant strides at these two junior Spring Classics from a year ago, finishing in the front group this year at E3 Saxo Classic and improving 89 spots at Paris-Roubaix with sixth in the highly competitive race a week ago.

"I think one of the main differences was just the experience. I've already done it before, and had a year of junior racing, it wasn't too good of a season the year before," Hincapie told Cyclingnews.

"Still, it led me to learn how the peloton moves, and I was able to take that in for pretty much every race this year. It's helped a lot, positioning-wise, and making the right decisions."

When the 17-year-old was announced in January as joining the German U19 team Grenke-Auto Eder, the development programme for WorldTour squad Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, he was called "a complete racer" by Director of Development Tim Meeusen.

By the age of 16, Hincapie had already won five US junior road national titles, his first pair in 2022 for ONTO Racing. He repeated with a road race title the next two years in the 15-16 division and took the silver, then gold, in the time trial. In those events alone, he demonstrated the versatility that Meeusen saw.

Away from US Nationals, he caught a lot of attention by winning the amateur finals race at Athens Twilight Criterium, beating riders twice his age in a field of 70. Last year with the US national team, he gained more international experience, winning a stage at the three-day 2.1-level Internationale Cottbuser Junioren-Etappenfahrt in Germany. But the high level of junior racing in Europe was a sure bet, even for a US national champion with a solid pedigree.

"Especially in junior racing, it's always pretty challenging. It's very crazy, and it's never really controlled," Hincapie told Cyclingnews. "I feel like with every race I've done this year, I keep learning and making better decisions and being in better places at the right time. But yeah, I think it all comes down to just trying to learn as much as I can with every race.

"Roubiax is such a chaotic race. My teammates had bad luck, and that's how the sport is sometimes."

He said that at his second time at Paris-Roubaix Juniors, he marked as many of the attacks as he could, riders competing in the colours of their home nations as a Nations Cup event. European junior road champion Karl Herzog of Germany and Julius Birkedal of Norway were among the aggressive riders he chased, both also part of his trade team, and Herzog in a leading late break with Dutch rider Thijs Wiersma.

"For that race, I was racing for the win or a podium, so I didn't want to let anyone go away," he recalled. "But there were already two guys up the road, and then another [attack] happened, and then I just took a gamble and also attacked myself. I didn't have quite the legs to get in contact with the front group. But I was really close.

"There wasn't much cooperation, so I kind of just went all-in to try and catch this front group. It was all or nothing. I happened to get caught by the group behind, and two or three people came around me in the sprint."

One of the riders swooping around was Birkedal, who finished in fourth, part of the group of 11 who were just two seconds behind winner Wiersma and runner-up Herzog.

"Just to be able to make the attacks and make the front groups whenever I wanted, it's definitely a major improvement from last Roubaix, where I never really saw the front event I wanted to. It was super fun [this year], I really enjoyed it."

Earlier in March, Hincapie finished on the podium alongside teammate and race winner Birkedal at the Gran Premi Les Franqueses. The US rider is inching closer to a win this year.

Hincapie was home in South Carolina this week, hoping to race another time in Athens, Georgia, but pulled out due to sickness. He will travel back to Europe for a block of racing before US Road Nationals, lining up the two-day Grand Prix West Bohemia for Grenke-Auto Eder, then another Nations Cup round at the Junior Peace Race in Czechia.

"The Peace race is a big goal of mine, and after that I'll do Flanders Juniors, also another big goal," he said. Then he was eager to get back to the US Road Nationals in June.

"For the time trial, I can really push myself to the extreme limit. For the road race, positioning helps a lot and making the right decisions, knowing who to follow. I favour the one-day races."

There are some late arrivals to serious gravel now and Jacob 'Jake' Richards is one who has not just ambition, but a plan. The 27-year-old earned a second entry into the wild card field at this year's Life Time Grand Prix series, and wants to be a pro rider. However, he doesn't want to just get paid to ride, but wants "to make a big difference in others' lives".

He'll take the start on Thursday in the pro field at the Sea Otter Classic gravel race, though most eyes will be on 2025 Grand Prix champion Cameron Jones (Scott Sports USA-RCC) and three-time Grand Prix winner and defending Sea Otter Classic winner Keegan Swenson.

The love for cycling captivated Richards as a teenager, and he did several epic rides across the US, including Key West, Florida to Bloomington, Indiana. That led him to a spot on the Grey Goat Cycling team for racing with his older brother in the Little 500 in Bloomington, Indiana (think Cutters in the movie 'Breaking Away'). He won a collegiate title in the Team Pursuit while attending Indiana University. After moving to Utah for a teaching position in 2022, he found some dirt roads to ride in the Ogden area and then competed at the 2023 Unbound Gravel 200 as his first competitive gravel event.

When you see bib number 77 in the Sea Otter Classic this year, that's Richards. He has renewed confidence that he can make a go of a privateer career in off-road races. He spoke to Cyclingnews about his untraditional path to the Life Time Grand Prix wild card selection, balancing training and racing with a full-time job, his love of teaching at the Utah Charter School to inspire his students, and even how he met one of the Cutters growing up in Bloomington.

Cyclingnews: Tell us about growing up in Indiana and how you got involved with cycling.

Jake Richards: Indiana, in general, can be a bit boring, but Bloomington is a bit of a diamond in the rough, especially for cycling. To be honest, there is not a lot to do unless you are into the lake life/hanging at quarries or sports. I played just about every sport I could growing up (baseball, basketball, tackle and flag football, soccer, tennis, hockey, wrestling, golf, cross country, track). My main sport was baseball, playing in competitive travel leagues in the summer, until I learned that you can do more with bikes than ride them around the neighborhood and to the mall with your buddies.

As a kid, I always heard about the Little 500 and had wanted to go so badly. Even my 5th grade engineering teacher was a 'Cutter'. I have talked to him throughout the years, seeing him at different events, and even chatting with him my freshman year about how to be successful with dyslexia, which we both have. Once my older brother joined a team [for the Little 500], I was able to start hanging out with the guys on the team and actually help the team out by being a lap counter and attending my first little 500.

CN: The Little 500 is such a famous amateur cycling event, held at Indiana University, and popularised by the movie "Breaking Away", filmed long before you were born. Tell us about when you first competed as a teen with your brother, even before you were in college.

JR: Over my last several years in high school, I started getting closer with the guys on Gray Goat, even to the point that they invited me to join their winter training trip my senior year. I was able to drive down to Gulfport, Mississippi with the team. It was so cool to be able to feel like a part of the team with my brother. So this really led to my decision to go to IU and race in the Little 5 and be a part of a team with my brother.

We spent so much of our beginning year on the bike training for races together, especially since we both lived at home for a bit in college. He was my main training partner. We were actually on three teams together - Little 5, domestic team, and collegiate team.

I chose to go to IU for the Little 500, even though I was offered a partial scholarship to ride for Marian University. So it may not be as notable to those who don't know the Little 5, but most of my highlights come from this race. Participating in this race is something truly special; competing in front of 20,000+ people on a track is like nothing else, it's like racing your bike in an arena.

CN: So did the movie capture the true essence of the amateur 'Cutter' team versus pros and college teams?

JR: The movie is actually pretty accurate overall. I think the most fictional part is that a non-undergrad student is allowed to participate in the event. Also the fighting between the cutters and the Greek teams is a little exaggerated. There is always a bit of a feud between independent teams and Greek life, but overall, the community now (at least as of when I was in college) was extremely positive.

CN: Even before college, you mentioned your brother inspired you to ride a bike instead of pursuing baseball or other sports. Tell us about your first road bike and what rides you accomplished as a teenager.

JR: When I was in seventh grade, my older brother, Josh, who is two years older than me, decided to go on a bike trip from San Francisco, California to Bloomington, Indiana, with a group called DeCycles. I thought this was the coolest thing in the world, so I started saving up to go the next year. My mom helped me buy my first road bike. This was my first road bike, and I took it on the trip in 2013 from El Paso, Texas to Bismarck, North Dakota. I loved this bike and would still have it as a towny bike if it weren't a 53cm and I’m 6’4”, haha.

I don’t know what my mom was thinking by allowing her 14-year-old kid to ride across the country, but I am so glad that she had that trust in the group and me to do so. This is how I fell in love with the bike and where it can take me. I then continued doing the next four trips, riding from Key West, Florida, to Bloomington; Bloomington to Nova Scotia, Canada; Seattle, Washington to Los Angeles, California; and Los Angeles, California to Bloomington.

CN: When you were at Indiana University, what were your top three cycling highlights?

JR: I completed two out of three goals in college - to qualify and compete in Collegiate Road Nationals, to win the spring series (showing we were the fastest team on the Little 500 track), and to win the Little 500.

I qualified and raced in the 2022 collegiate national championships, for which I had to skip graduation, and my parents drove to Georgia to watch me race. Then it was winning the Little 500 Spring Series. The one I missed was winning the Little 500, which our opportunity was taken from us on the last lap of the ‘21 and ‘22 race by someone crashing us out on the final corner of lap 199 of 200. That isn’t saying that we would have won if we didn’t crash, but we had a really strong team.

My third highlight was being a part of a Team Pursuit Championship team in 2019.

CN: You went from Indiana to Utah, so how did you find the teaching job and a love for off-road riding?

JR: Gray Goat Cycling. The two brothers who started this team, Matt and Ryan Kiel, are also the founders of Two Hoosiers Cyclery that originated in Ogden. They had moved there to work for several cycling companies, including Enve Composites. So I moved to Ogden for the summer of 2019, the shop gave me a mountain bike to ride, and I fell in love with the mountains. I then continued this summer internship until the end of the summer in 2022. I had graduated with a degree in Elementary and Special Education, so when the school year was about to start, I got a job working in a Moderate Special Education Unit in the Ogden School District.

CN: What do you enjoy most about teaching and why you want to continue with this career?

JR: I am currently a teacher at a charter school in a Salt Lake City suburb. I teach 7th, 8th, and 9th grade special education. The classes I cover are Directed Studies, eighth-grade Math, and Reading Interventions. Directed Studies covers Social Skills and Study Skills lessons and allows students to have time receiving help on content in other classes. I can target skills that the students need help with, and I can share my own life stories, which really draws some engagement from the students. This is where I love to share that I race bikes professionally and receive support to do so with my students, so they can see that they, too, can make their dreams come true.

I want to make a big difference in others' lives, and I don’t really see how only racing bikes can have that large an impact. I’ve always said that I want to be professional in a scene that I am paid to ride my bike, and I am extremely stoked to be able to say that I have made that come true.

It can be really hard to be a teacher and race at this level. The schedule for racing seems pretty ideal for racing, but with the majority of Grand Prix events being during the school year, I end up using all my personal time off.

In the summer, when I am not going to school every day, I put on mechanic education nights through my sponsor, Dangerous Pretzel Co., put on Monday night rides called the Pretzel Pedal, and run a GroupMe and Instagram called @Saltlakeridesbikes in attempts to help build some community.

CN: Once you got into off-road in Utah, what was your first real race?

JR: My first gravel race was Unbound 200. Unbound 200 being my first gravel race, it seems a bit unhinged or ignorant. Even though I started out mostly racing road, I was always drawn to ultra-endurance and the dirt. I had done a couple Everests and several 200+ mile rides.

My first Unbound was an eyeopener though. It was the 2023 mud addition with 4-6 miles of running in the first 20 miles of the race. The day went from being top three through the first mud section, to then getting passed in the second, running for several miles while trying to clean the 20+ pounds of mud on your bike, to then getting in the rhythm, to breaking a wheel and limping it to the 100-mile aid station, to almost getting heat stroke and sitting on the side of the road, to getting caught in a thunderstorm, to calling my brother to pick me up because I was so cold, to having my legs come back and passing an insane amount of people, to finishing 74th overall. It was a rollercoaster of emotions.

CN: ​​This year is your second time in the wild card for the Life Time Grand Prix, and that field was stacked with pros like Petr Vakoc, Adam Roberge, Brennan Wertz, Alex Howes. What did you learn in 2025 that will help you this season in the wild card?

JR: The biggest thing I learned is that I am more capable than I think I am. I remember lining up at Sea Otter [last year] being on the wheel of Lachlan Morton, who I have looked up to for many years and feeling over the moon. Alex Howes, in 2019 I watched him at the Tour of Utah.

I learned from racing in these fields that there was a panic moment of everyone trying to figure out their tire selection. I had only brought 2.0 or 45mm tires, but it seemed like everyone was going somewhere in the middle. At Unbound, walking around the expo, I ended up seeing Dylan Stucki, from the 2022 Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships in Durango, and he told me that I am the only one who knows my setup, so what other people run doesn’t matter at all, so run what I am confident in, and that will be the best setup for me. This really gave me the confidence to believe that I am one of the pros, even though I don’t have as much experience, that I am one of the guys that people look to for advice too.

CN: What are your goals this year?

JR: Obviously, I would love to make the selection to be in the Grand Prix, but realistically, my goals lie in my placement in the wild card standings and knowledge learned from the races. Coming from a road background, I am still learning to be less frustrated with the tactics of gravel chasing and group chasing.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our gravel cycling coverage in 2026. We'll be on the ground at the biggest races of the season, bringing you breaking news, expert analysis, in-depth features, and much more. Find out more.

Don't be surprised if you hear more shouts of 'Bravo' at bike races, with a capital 'B'. While the chant is a common exclamation to praise skill and courage, it's also the surname of Brazil's latest sports personality, 19-year-old cyclist Henrique Bravo. He's on an upward trajectory far away from his Brazilian roots, now making noise in Europe with Soudal-QuickStep Development.

There was another Enrique who became a role model in Brazil for a rising generation of cyclists: Enrique Avancini, who won World Cups, stages at Cape Epic and world titles with his mountain bike skills. Rather than a Kaká, Neymar, Rinaldo, or Rinaldinho, it was this athlete with two names and two world championships in marathon MTB who caught the attention of Bravo, carving a passion for the mountain bike and a path to a pro career on the road bike.

It wasn't until 2023 that Bravo raced for the first time in Europe. The next year, he switched to the road with a club team, Picusa Academy, and won the overall at the three-day Vuelta Junior a la Ribera del Duero. He then joined Soudal-QuickStep Development and adjusted to life in Girona, taking top-10 GC finishes at the hilly stage race Giro Ciclisto della Valle d'Aosta and the Tour Alsace.

To start this year, Bravo won a stage at his first UCI 2.1 stage race, Tour du Rwanda, and then won the first GC title of his young career at Tour of Antalya. In less than two weeks, one day before his 20th birthday, Bravo will take the start of the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège for a second time, landing 21st in his debut.

Off the bike, Bravo can be recognised by his quick, broad smile and cheerful attitude. He describes himself as "a happy person" and "a dreamer". On the bike, however, his confidence becomes evident and he does not hesitate to describe his talents with one word, "climber".

Cyclingnews caught up with the new phenom from Brazil to learn how he switched allegiances for a sports career from football to cycling, how he has adjusted to life in Spain as a teenager and how far he thinks he can go.

Cyclingnews: Tell us about growing up in Nova Lima, a large town in the mountainous region of south-east Brazil. How did you got involved with cycling?

Enrique Bravo: I always had a lot of energy, so I did all the sports first, playing football, as almost all the kids in Brazil. I did swimming, cycling, judo, skateboarding and many more sports. My childhood in Brazil was amazing. I studied at an Italian school in the town while I did a bunch of sports (to try to spend my infinite energy) and had a lot of fun with friends playing football. For sure, my favourite subject was physical education, also I was interested in geography.

But then, close to 11 years old, I decided to try a mountain bike class, close to where I live, and then I had a love [for cycling] from the first time on the two wheels.

CN: Did you have a role model for cycling as a young rider, either in your family or from a professional athlete?

HB: To be honest, when I was younger, I didn’t watch cycling. The culture in Brazil was much more around football. An example, in my family, there is nobody who does cycling. But then, when I started mountain biking, I became a big fan of Henrique Avancini.

CN: What do you remember about your first bike?

HB: My first bike was very simple, which my family gave to me. It was like a supermarket bike with a collaboration with 'Hot Wheels'. I had some extra wheels to help get the balance, and then after some time, I took [the training wheels] off. Since then, it was just fun.

CN: What was your first race on a bike outside Brazil? It was mountain biking, so how did that go?

HB: My first race outside Brazil was when I was a junior in 2023. The race was close to Aosta in Italy. It was unbelievable to ride for the first time in Europe; all the views and the trails were incredible. I got top five in my first race in Europe, also got second in a race in Switzerland, so overall it was nice to see that I had a good level, compared to the European level.

CN: Your first full season with Soudal-QuickStep Devo was in Europe last year. What were three things that you learned from the year?

HB: In Brazil, I basically did a couple of races on the road, before it was just MTB. So then last year with Soudal was one of my first real road races. It’s a new world of experience and it was basically a school, I learned every day - how to position, to race as a team - and basically everything that in Brazil you don’t have.

CN: It was a big change to go from Brazil to Spain at the age of 18. Tell us about the adjustments you needed and what skills you had that made it comfortable, too.

HB: For sure, it’s a big move coming from Brazil to live in Spain, but I adapted quite fast! I have some friends from Brazil who also live here, so this helped a lot to get more social and talk my language, like I do at home in Brazil. I speak Portuguese, English, Spanish, Italian, and am now learning French.

Sometimes you miss Brazil but I really love the life here in Girona, from the security of training without trucks but also the lifestyle of the city.

CN: So, are there busy roads where you lived in Brazil, and the roads are better in Spain?

HB: Yes, to go to the small roads without so many cars, you need to take the big road in Brazil. So I take the train. On the highway, there are a lot of cars and trucks passing at 120 kph, but I am already used to it.

For some people from Europe, it would be quite scary to see how busy it is. So then I appreciate it a lot here in Girona where the cars respect the cyclists.

CN: How much faster has the peloton been on the road than what you were used to in South America?

HB: For sure, much faster. Everyone here is so incredibly strong and also they grew up racing on the road since they were young. Sometimes, when you come from another continent, it takes a bit more time to adapt to the racing style and all that stuff, but it is possible to follow them when you train hard, get some racing in the legs and gain experience.

CN: You had a diverse schedule in 2025 - Liège-Bastogne-Liège, stage races in France and Italy, plus Worlds in Rwanda. What type of race suits you best?

HB: I really love the climbing races, for example, like Giro Valle D’Aosta suits me quite well with the long climbs! The experience in Rwanda was amazing, racing with the Brazil colours is something unique. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a lot the more punchy races like Liège and races in Ardennes.

CN: You spoke to Phil Lowe, team communications director, on The WolfPack Howls podcast in January about learning to suffer with climbing. What do you like the most about climbing? And what bike do you prefer to ride more, road or MTB?

HB: Since I started in cycling, I was good in the mountains. I basically love how much you can push on a climb. It is hard but amazing at the same time.

Where I Iive in Brazil, I have a good climb, 5k from my home, it's quite hard. I have a lot of big climbs to discover in Europe, so I’m excited to one day do these mythical climbs like Alpe D’Huez.

Everybody asks me that question [about a favourite bike]. I would say road bike for climbing. And then when I arrive at the top, I switch, and then I go on the trails [with mountain bike].

CN: In the next few years, what are the top races you look forward to racing the most?

HB: For this year, I have some top U23 races like Giro Next Gen and Tour de L’Avenir. My goal for the next few years is to keep living my dream and never stop improving.

I hope to be at the WorldTour level. To go to the Olympics in L.A. is a big goal. We'll see in two years what is possible.

The start of the junior E3 Classic is a strange place. Just a few hundred metres up the road, WorldTour pros are getting ready in warm buses, hordes of fans already surrounding them. Round the corner, on a quiet, residential street, there are 17 and 18-year-olds getting changed in vans.

Some of the riders are actually riding WorldTour teams' bikes, or wearing their helmets – some even their kit – but here they're on national team duty, where budgets don't even stretch to a camper, unless you're Belgian.

Milling around the basic line-up of vehicles are coaches, parents, and a very small number of supporters. But the most interesting figures are those in expensive coats or team-issue jackets, chatting directly with riders, and getting their number – both metaphorically and literally.

These people are agents and scouts, here to identify the next generation of talent before they even turn 19, and – ideally – get them on their books.

We know by now that these relationships are starting earlier and earlier, with top riders turning pro straight out of junior ranks, or at least signing for a WorldTour team's development squad. The fight for the next big star is fierce, and everyone wants to lock talent in early.

'Scouting' can come in a lot of different forms, and these days can happen via Instagram DMs as much as anything else, but with agents and scouts on the road throughout the year, it's clear that nothing beats actually getting out there and meeting riders.

Junior races like E3, or perhaps the junior Trofeo Alfredo Binda a couple of weeks ago, are quietly some of the most important days of the year. Winning is important, yes, but every rider also knows that eyes from the pro ranks will be on them, and a good ride here could be a stepping stone towards a pro contract.

A rider is more than the sum of their watts

When everything nowadays is on ProCyclingStats and Strava, you might think that talent scouts can do all their work from home, just crunching the numbers to find the junior most statistically likely to become a good elite rider. But actually, they're looking for much, much more than that.

"Personally, I look firstly at the humility of the rider," Jayco AlUla scout Giovanni Visconti tells Cyclingnews after E3, perhaps not the first quality you'd expect a scout to pick up on.

"I like to speak with them and see how they love their sport and how they try to do their best. Clearly, we also look at the physical values and how it works in terms of results. Another Important thing is the ability to stay in a big group, the ability on a descent, for example. After the race, often I also look at their behaviour with team staff and teammates."

Looking at a rider's data or power numbers is one element of identifying talent, but when it comes to spotting riders teams might want to tap up for the long term, pure numbers are not enough to go on, and big wins or high power aren't everything.

"Values are really important, but for me they are only the base to start looking at the rider on the road," Visconti explained. "There are riders with fantastic values that don’t show it on the road and riders who don’t have great values but show more. There has to be a compromise between results and values. From there, you know that you can work to improve."

At a race like E3, a scout like Visconti will be at the start and finish, but also out on the course, picking out the key moments to go and watch. With no TV footage of these races, and little other reporting, being on the ground is essential.

Visconti spends a lot of his time on the road, and will be looking for specific things at specific races.

"In races like E3, I go to see the ability of the rider to keep positions, to stay in a group in a race with small and difficult roads," he explains. "If I’m looking for a 'Classics man', I'm also watching the ability to read the race, to move in the right moment."

Representatives from teams are one big part of the scouting ecosystem, but the other big part is agents and agencies. Independent agents might do it all themselves, whilst bigger agencies will have dedicated scouts, but all the agents will also have half an eye on rising riders.

"It's crazy how competitive it's getting now on the women's side. People are looking at under 17s already, which, for me, is insane," Loren Rowney, former pro and now rider agent at The Team – formerly Wasserman – says.

For Rowney, scouting is a smaller part of her job, as The Team have David Bartelet in that dedicated role, but it's something she's attentive to all the same, and takes a lot more than just looking at results, or even just at the main races.

"This is a good example. We had Binda a few weeks ago, and they have the Piccolo Binda race. And that actually came down to a bunch sprint. Now if you just look at the top three there, you'd think 'OK, it came down to a bunch sprint' but if you didn't see the race and didn't know [how] it panned out and you didn't know which riders spent time off the front, it would be really hard to know what kind of athlete you're looking at. Did they just sit in the whole race and then kick at the finish?," she says.

"Where you can sometimes get a glimmer of the potential of an athlete is coming to these kermesses in Belgium. One of my clients was racing one on the weekend, and the girl who got second at Binda under 19s, a German rider [Edda Bieberle], I was blown away by how she rode that race.

"She had a crack and she put a minute and a half into the peloton, and there were some other strong riders there, but the way that she just attacked the race, I was like 'this is a rider who has talent'."

The next steps

Getting onto a talent scout's radar is very much just the start of the story for any promising rider. A thousand different factors will come into what happens next, whether it's how they perform in the next races, what a scout thinks of their personality off the bike, what they're looking for in a team, and much, much more.

"After an impressive performance, I'll try to find out if the rider has an agent or not so I contact the agent or the rider in some way and ask the permission from his parents to speak with him, and also have access to his training platform," Visconti explains.

"Then I introduce the rider to our scouting group to discuss and decide how to act with him. From there, we try to keep in contact and see each other again in another race."

Might there be more performance tests that the team wants to undertake with a rider? Maybe, but that's probably less common than you think, with less tangible qualities more important to many scouts.

"Sometimes, when looking at their training platform is not enough, or there’s something not so clear, we can ask them to do a short test during their training. Nothing special. I think every team has its protocol. But often we don’t need to ask for a test," Visconti says.

On the agent side, the goal is somewhat the same, to make connections with talented young riders – and Rowney also points to gaining the trust of a young rider's parents as a key part of the process. However, the next steps and the aims of the partnership are different.

Agents won't be testing a rider's FTP, and indeed the goal of their relationship is often to be a support off the bike to help navigate the journey into pro cycling.

"A lot of WorldTour teams now will admit that they don't have the means to develop these 18-year-olds, because it's not just the talent side of things; you're dealing with a very young human being here," Rowney says.

"At the races, they're there in a very safe environment with the team, but once they go home and the races are done, and maybe things didn't go well, then you've just dropped them off in a foreign country and said 'OK, good luck processing that'.

"And with the demands on WorldTour teams now too, sometimes that's just not right for you, and for a lot of athletes it's sink or swim."

Why so early?

The big question in all of this is, why is this all happening so early nowadays? Why is the start of E3 now half race, half business meeting?

For teams, it's clear that top riders' careers are peaking earlier, and in the era of ultra-long contracts, it's imperative to lock talent in early. You can't let them be snapped up by someone else. Many team managers also talk about the importance of getting a rider enmeshed in the ethics and working style of a team early, too.

It means that there's not a lot of choice in whether you get involved with this rat race or not.

"Junior scouting is certainly more important now than in the past. Cycling and sport in general is moving forward quickly. We can’t stop this process," Visconti says.

"So we have to do our best to try to find talents, but also pay attention to their correct [development] and give them the best to grow up well, without forgetting that they are so young and life is not only cycling."

On the agency side, the very fundamental reason is that the sooner you sign a rider, the sooner you can be taking a cut of their salary, which these days can be huge even for very young riders. Rowney admits that, like in any industry, there will be agents more motivated by that than anything else, but many are also very interested in caring for and nurturing their clients, particularly the youngest ones, and perhaps not pushing the pro pipeline too soon.

"OK, you can have those generational talents like Cat Ferguson, but for both men and women – women more so when you consider our hormones and everything – just because you're a phenomenal under-17 doesn't necessarily mean it's going to translate into being an elite athlete. Plus at that age, they shouldn't feel that pressure," she says.

"You can still start learning the aspects of what it means to be an elite athlete and what that looks like, the importance of good food, recovery, all those sorts of things, you can learn as a junior, but the pressure now on these young athletes is insane. And I do wonder sometimes about the emotional toll it's taking."

Navigating contracts is one part of an agents job, but many also help riders get set up with a new home, help them find proper rehabilitation after injuries, and many other smaller, more pastoral things.

From the outside, watching the start of E3 and prevalence of scouts, it's easy to wonder if young riders are becoming commodities for teams and agents to fight over, or if the two sides of the scouting world are at odds, trying to get to talent before the other.

"I've never really though of it as like, we've got to get to them before they get to a team," Rowney says. "But I'm sure that is why some agents are trying to sign under-17s, to get in there before they start making any decisions."

"There are many agents now and they are working more every year with young talent, so we have to work with them," Visconti adds.

"Sometime it’s easy, sometimes it's not, but it’s part of the game. It’s not so important to find riders without agents, I think most important is that agents can give the right advice to their riders, not forgetting that the family must be the first place where important choices should come from."

At E3 juniors, Italy's Brandon Fedrizzi won the race, whilst Matilde Rossignoli won the important Piccolo Binda. Edda Bieberle, the second-placed rider Rowney spoke about, has already taken two more wins in Belgium since then.

These might not be names you know yet, but talent scouts will know them and everything about 50 other talented riders, too. Whether it's on a quiet street in Belgium or in an Instagram DM, the process of unleashing the next generation of talent has very much begun.

Fleur Moors looks very young and very cold as she steps into the Sporza studio in Wevelgem, flanked by Greg Van Avermaet and Marijn de Vries to dissect the biggest result of her career, and step firmly onto the radar of cycling fans in Belgium and beyond. The talented rider is no longer just rising; she has made it.

Moors is not new to the WorldTour. She may still be only 20, but she's now in her third year, signing straight out of the juniors and taking a whirlwind journey towards the top, with second at In Flanders Fields offering a breakthrough result.

If anyone didn't know her name before Sunday, they certainly do now, after she came perilously close to beating Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) on the line from an elite group that formed in the finale.

What's more, this isn't even the first time this year she's gone toe to toe with Wiebes; Moors went away with the Dutchwoman in the finale of the GP Oetingen, beaten on the line but the only rider who could follow her acceleration.

So who is the 20-year-old who will now be on absolutely everyone's radar this Monday morning?

Early promise, teething problems, and a breakthrough

From Bree, in northeast Belgium – practically the Netherlands – Moors quickly made waves as a junior, finishing 12th in her first World Championships in Australia in 2022, and third the year after. She also picked up a fourth in the junior Tour of Flanders, and impressed on the cyclo-cross field, so it was no surprise that Lidl-Trek picked her up, signing her from the start of the 2024 season when she was still 18.

Her talent was clear, and she wasn't alone in joining Lidl-Trek young in 2024 – they signed five riders straight out of juniors that year – but she wasn't a precocious neo pro.

"I didn’t know anybody, and my English was also not good, so that was really scary for me,” she told Cyclingnews at the end of her first pro season, for a feature exploring the junior to WorldTour pipeline.

"I came to the airport on my own, I never did that before, so all those things were so stressful."

Thrown straight into tough races, the Belgian, who is small but not a climber – more inclined to the mud of cyclocross than long Spanish climbs – initially felt the shock of the step up.

"It was really difficult because on this level on those climbs, I was really dropping off every time," she recounted. "But then Ina [Teutenberg, Lidl-Trek DS] said to me ‘you don’t have to be so hard on yourself’. Then after that I had some races with not so much climbing, more my kind of race, and I did some good things which gave me confidence."

An injury at the start of 2025 put the brakes on Moors' development, but coming back in June, she quickly flew to her first pro win, taking a sprint victory at Dwars door de Westhoek, ahead of riders much more experienced than her.

A tough Giro d'Italia Women debut followed, and then a big week at the Tour de l'Avenir Femmes, finishing her season in Rwanda. Those two years were a good start to her pro career, and anyone with a keen eye on women's cycling definitely took note of her rise, but she's really announced herself in 2026.

Being older and more experienced obviously helps, but Moors doesn't put her step up this year down to anything in particular, more just circumstances allowing her to show off the potential she's always had.

"I think just the rhythm, not becoming sick, no bad luck," she told Cyclingnews on Sunday. "Last year I had quite a lot of bad luck, but now I can build up and build up, and you see that it pays off.

"These are the races that fit me well. Bigger climbs are still not my thing, but I'm happy I can do my thing in these Belgian Classic races."

Praise from all angles

Though the youngest member of the Lidl-Trek team that started on Sunday, Moors is a highly respected and important part of the squad.

"She's amazing," a tired but buoyed Emma Norsgaard told Cyclingnews in Wevelgem. "For sure she's one of the biggest talents coming into women's cycling at the moment. She's super cool.

"She's for sure a Classics rider, and mentally she's just a real go-getter, so it's amazing to be teammates with her, it's really inspiring to see a young talent like her."

Moors also garnered respect and praise from the rider she nearly beat on Sunday.

"I think Fleur showed really good progression this year. She's still super young and she's doing really strong, also with these hills," Lorena Wiebes said. "In Oetingen I knew also that she was able to follow when I attacked. I think it's good to see young riders like Fleur becoming stronger and I think it was a good opportunity for her. She's also quite explosive after a race like this."

The young rider has clearly been lifting the level in the team this Spring, but it's a two-way street. On Sunday, she again thanked Teutenberg, the DS who told her stop being so hard on herself back when she started.

"Ina told me in the meeting I needed to be in the attack so I was saying to myself 'I need to do it!'", Moors said. "She’s really good on the radio and is also the reason why I made it on to the podium. It’s so nice to have her."

It's certainly nice for the German team to have her, too. Results have not come in abundance so far this season, but with Moors' second place on Sunday, they put themselves back in the headlines this Classics campaign.

The most exciting thing is seeing what the 20-year-old can do next.

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We'll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Find out more.

After 170.5 kilometres (106 miles) of red dust kicked up by the Oklahoma winds and an unrelenting pace of a strong elite men's field, the final 250 metres confirmed Colorado youngster Cobe Freeburn (Trek Driftless) was ready for prime time.

The 24-year-old from Durango won Mid South Gravel when he hit the afterburners on the pavement in Stillwater and ignited a final surge to hold off Unbound Gravel 200 champion Cameron Jones (Scott-RCC) at the line.

It wasn't just your typical crazy-fast sprint to decide an off-road endurance race, it was a forecast for the new guard of gravel. The two are just separated in age by one year, with Jones a familiar name with two strong seasons of gravel, and a Life Time Grand Prix title, on his resume. Freeburn comes from mountain biking and lines up for the first time in the Grand Prix this season, the opening round April 16 at Sea Otter Classic Gravel in California.

"I wanted to be a part of the Life Time Grand Prix because that is where the best competition in off-road cycling is. It is an incredible opportunity to compete against the best in the country and some of the best in the world," Freeburn told Cyclingnews after he was named to the early-season roster of 22 men in the LTGP field.

"The majority of the best cyclists in the gravel/off-road space are in the Grand Prix or at least compete in some of the races. There is also a lot of attention on the series and the athletes competing in it, so it's a nice opportunity to get my name out there more."

Freeburn sells himself a bit short, as his name is already out there. He added his name to the list that has won the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic - Quinn Simmons, Sepp Kuss and Howard Grotts - and won the race twice. 2025 was his breakout year on gravel, winning Bighorn Gravel and finishing third at SBT GRVL, just behind winner Brennan Wertz and runner-up Keegan Swenson. He was fifth at Chequamegon MTB and finished 15th at Leadville Trail 100 MTB.

Peter Stetina called him a "big prospect" last year after SBT GRVL, while Wertz noted that he was more than just a high-altitude "rider to watch," saying "I've seen him perform in all sorts of different courses.

After the Oklahoma matchup, Jones took to social to say Freeburn's form was "spot on" and the new LTGP rider "would be one to watch this year, killer sprint in the end there".

An attritional race that started with 65 riders came down to 20 then seven at the front of the race with 55km (34 miles) to go, and Wertz was the first to drop from the steam engine with a flat tyre. A water crossing with 27km (16 miles) caused another disruption and soon there were just three on the pavement in downtown Stillwater, with Michael Garrison (SpeedStudio p/b Basso), another 24-year-old, just three seconds behind the sprint duo for third.

"That was definitely the best sprint I have ever put together at the end of a race, it was also my best 5, 10, and 12-second power I have ever done. I have typically not done as well in sprints at the end of races but this time was different I guess," Freeburn told Cyclingnews.

"Cam and Michael were probably stronger than me most of the day so I was very surprised that I was able to outsprint them at the end."

The victory for Freeburn was his first riding for Trek Driftless, his teammate Daxton Mock leading the chase group for fourth.

"This year joining Trek Driftless has been nice so far. It really allows me to focus more on the racing and less about the other small things that go on during race weekends. I don't have to worry about going to the store or how I'm going to get to the venue. It just really allows me to put all my energy into performing on race day," he said.

"The next few races on my calendar are Sea Otter, Traka 200, and Unbound. They are all big targets for me so hopefully I can carry some momentum into them."

He and Mock had been in the pipeline for the gravel squad since racing several years together in MTB and some cyclo-cross with the Trek-supported Bear National Team. Mock is among the wild card entries for the Life Time Grand Prix this year.

The third men's rider on Trek Driftless is Torbjørn Røed, who finished third overall at the Grand Prix last year. He often trained with Freeburn last year and will be part of a formidable trio for the six-race Grand Prix.

"I was also very fortunate to have an incredible teammate. Daxton Mock and I worked together seamlessly and we were always in the right place at the right time. I can’t thank everyone enough. Hopefully this is just the beginning," he added in a social post.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our gravel cycling coverage in 2026. We'll be on the ground at the biggest races of the season, bringing you breaking news, expert analysis, in-depth features, and much more. Find out more.

Lidl-Trek have added a second stepping stone on the development path to WorldTour racing, Lidl-Trek Junior Racing launching for the 2026 season with 10 full-time riders, and British rider Leon Atkins confirmed as one of three guest riders.

The squad for 16 to 18-year-old junior men completes a structured programme for the WorldTour team alongside the Lidl-Trek Future Racing squad, launched in 2024 for under-23 riders. The new team partners with a regional German squad, Baden-Württemberg, and will begin their season at the Tour du Bocage et de l’Ernée 53 on March 28-29.

"Creating Lidl-Trek Junior Racing gives us a level of structure in our scouting process that we haven’t had before – one that allows us to detect talent earlier and give young riders a clear, supported pathway toward the development team," Josu Larrazabal, head of coaching, scouting and academy at Lidl-Trek, said in a press statement.

"Because the team is registered as a Club Team, it doesn’t conflict with races where national federations take part, which means we can build the best possible race programme around each rider. It’s also a significant step forward in managing the transition from junior to under-23 level."

Club teams are becoming a preferred path for young riders who may have previously chosen national teams. They offer a consistent environment for coaching and competition, and now that Nations Cup races are no longer on the calendar, development teams can compete in top races like Tour de L'Avenir, which were formerly only for national teams.

Ten of the 13 riders are from Germany in alignment with the regional team affiliation and will be the team's full-time roster.

Three further riders will "join the team as guest riders for select events", Lidl-Trek said, racing with their existing teams for the rest of the year.

Those three international guest riders are Austrian junior road champion Michael Hetteger, Trophée Madiot-Crédit Mutuel champion Julien Breugnot of France and British junior time trial champion and track star Atkins.

Breugnot rides for CC Étupes whilst Atkins is on the CAMS Majaco team, which is supported by Ineos Grenadiers, but he is already pinned to join Lidl-Trek Future Racing as an under-23 in 2027.

"Just as we’ve seen with the progression of our U23 riders to the WorldTour, knowing athletes from race situations, from training day-to-day, from how they handle their lives outside of cycling – that knowledge is invaluable. This programme improves our ability to find and develop the very best junior talent, and I’m genuinely excited about what that means for the future of this team,” Larrazabal added.

As a club team, Lidl-Trek Junior Racing joins the ranks of four other development squads that are directly affiliated to a WorldTour team: Cannibal-Victorious U19 Development, Decathlon CMA CGM Juniors Team, Groupama-FDJ United and Soudal-QuickStep U19.

Several top-tier teams have partnerships with existing club teams: EF Education works with EF Education-ONTO (USA), Visma-Lease a Bike with JEGG-SKIL-DJR (Netherlands), Ineos Grenadiers with CAMS Majaco (Great Britain) and Hot Tubes Development (USA), while Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe works with Grenke-Auto Eder (Germany).

Many of these junior club teams will use the Tour du Bocage et de l’Ernée 53 in France as a barometer to test talent. Past winners of the two-day race include Jarno Widar, now with Lotto Intermarché, and Ashlin Barry, who competes with the Visma-Lease a Bike Development team.

Other races planned for this season include Côte d’Or Classic Juniors in France, RF LVM Saarland Trofeo in Germany and RF Keizer der Juniores in Belgium.

Lidl-Trek Junior Racing 2026 roster

• Sean Arnold (Germany)
• Timo Burger (Germany)
• Luan Elsäßer (Germany)
• Louis Joos (Germany)
• Noah Kunz (Germany)
• Mathis Müller (Germany)
• Moritz Schwarzer (Germany)
• Josh Tietjen (Germany)
• Baltasar Waldmüller (Germany)
• Timo Zabel (Germany)
• Leon Atkins (United Kingdom) – guest rider
• Julien Breugnot (France) – guest rider
• Michael Hetteger (Austria) – guest rider

Note: this story was updated on March 19, 2026 to reflect a clarification issued by Lidl-Trek about the guest rider status of three riders.

The Spring Classics season is upon us, with Opening Weekend kicking off almost two months of thrilling action in Belgium, Northern France, Italy, and the Netherlands, taking in four of cycling's Monuments along the way.

We'll all be looking out for the big-name Classics superstars to make their mark this spring, with the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, Lotte Kopecky, Tadej Pogačar, Demi Vollering, Wout van Aert, and Lorena Wiebes all due to make the headlines in the cobbles and hills between now and April.

But every year, of course, a host of new names leave their mark on the spring Classics. Faces old and new make the step up with memorable breakaways, palmarès-topping results, and breakthrough performances.

We've pored through the men's and women's peloton to pick out some of the riders most likely to take the next step this spring. Here are our breakthrough riders to watch in the 2026 spring Classics.

Lidl-Trek's youngsters

The news that Lidl-Trek Classics leader Mads Pedersen fractured his collarbone and wrist earlier this month has opened the door for several of his teammates to step up, at least in the early weeks of the spring Classics. It remains to be seen when the Dane will return to action, but in the meantime, his team can look to a host of promising young riders on the cobbles.

Czech champion Mathias Vacek has shown much promise since joining the team in 2023, including finishing runner-up at Paris-Tours two years ago. He's also featured in the break at Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold Race in recent seasons, but hasn't yet raced spring as a team leader. It'll be interesting to see how he tackled Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Joining him in the Opening Weekend team will be a clutch of first- and second-year pros in Tim Torn Teutenberg (aged 23), Jakob Söderqvist (22), and Albert Withen Philipsen (19).

Under-23 world time trial champion Söderqvist and Paris-Tours podium finisher Withen Philipsen both fit the profile of tall, strong Classics men, as does German racer Torn Teutenberg. Withen Philipsen and Söderqvist went one-two at last year's Paris-Roubaix Espoirs, while Torn Teutenberg won the race two years ago.

Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto)

Twenty-one-year-old Zoe Bäckstedt is building towards something special. Will this spring herald another breakthrough for the multi-talented racer who has already won world titles at junior and under-23 levels across road, track, and cyclo-cross.

2026 marks Bäckstedt's third season at Women's WorldTour level with Canyon, with her 2025 campaign bringing much success. Last year, she took out a three-stage-and-the-overall win at the Baloise Belgium Tour and then a second career WWT stage win at the Simac Ladies Tour.

Bäckstedt has the Tour of Flanders junior title to her name, and she's also finished 13th at Paris-Roubaix. She's also improving every year, so we could be in for something big this spring.

Look out, too, for Bäckstedt's Dutch teammate Maike van der Duin. The 24-year-old is a fast finisher and took sixth and third at the Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem three seasons ago. The latter half of her 2025 campaign was derailed by illness, but she returned to action at the recent Setmana Valenciana.

Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Visma-Lease a Bike's rapid 20-year-old Matthew Brennan has already made his big breakthrough, bursting into the pro ranks last year with 12 wins, including four at WorldTour level across the Volta a Catalunya, Tour de Romandie, and Tour de Pologne.

A win at the GP de Denain and a stint working for Wout van Aert deep into Paris-Roubaix showed that he's clearly a name to watch during cobbled Classics season in future, too.

This year, he's already taken out a win at the Tour Down Under, and he's set for a full Classics campaign, including Opening Weekend, Milan-San Remo, and the big cobbled races heading into Flanders and Roubaix. Van Aert may be Visma's leader, but Brennan will be one to watch.

Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ)

It's inarguable that Irish racer Lara Gillespie has already made her Classics breakthrough. After all, the 24-year-old enjoyed a dazzling run of results last spring – second at the Omloop van het Hageland, third at Le Samyn and Nokere Koerse, fifth at the Classic Brugge-De Panne, sixth at Gent-Wevelgem, and a top-20 at Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

Can she take that next step and come away from this spring with a Women's WorldTour podium or a Classics win? She's shown all the potential to do so, and after last year's run of results, she'll be a watched rider throughout this spring.

In order to get a result, Gillespie will no doubt be battling Lorena Wiebes, who took four big wins last March, once again. At the UAE Tour earlier this month, she opened her season account with two second places and a fifth behind the mighty Dutch sprinter.

Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep)

Following the departure of Remco Evenepoel, one-time Classics powerhouse Soudal-QuickStep have recalibrated their squad to go at the spring Classics once more. Jasper Stuyven and Dylan van Baarle join as major additions, while Yves Lampaert, Casper Pedersen, and young sprinter Paul Magnier stay on board to form a powerful group.

The 21-year-old Frenchman came close to a big win this time last season, finishing second at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, while he finished second at the Ename Samyn Classic a few days later, too. Later on, he rounded out his season with 14 wins in two months.

This spring, he's tackling Omloop and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne before heading to Milan-San Remo, Dwars door Vlaanderen, and the Tour of Flanders. Don't be surprised if the two-time Volta ao Algarve stage winner walks away from the period with a breakthrough Classics victory.

Demi Vollering's support team (FDJ United-Suez)

With a spring Classics palmarès packed with six wins across Strade Bianche, Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liége, it won't be a surprise to see one of women's cycling's superstars, Demi Vollering, competing for the biggest prizes once again this spring.

She'll be backed up by one of the strongest support squads around, too, with the likes of Vittoria Guazzini, Juliette Berthet, Elise Chabbey, and Amber Kraak set to support the Dutchwoman. But these riders, while lacking a similar big Classics win themselves, have all the quality to step up themselves, too.

All four riders have been there or thereabouts in the biggest races of the spring. Guazzini is a former Le Samyn winner with top fives at Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Trofeo Binda to her name. Berthet has scored top 10s at Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, and the Ardennes Classics. Kraak has done the same at Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold Race. Meanwhile, Chabbey finished top 10 at Flanders and Roubaix last season, and has done the same at Strade Bianche, Flèche, and Liège.

Vollering will be leading FDJ United-Suez this spring, but the strength of her support team is such that any of them could score a big win themselves.

Cristian Scaroni (XDS-Astana)

XDS-Astana came back from the dead last year to fly up to fourth in the UCI rankings, securing their future in the WorldTour for another three years thanks to a single-minded pursuit of UCI points throughout 2025. Italian racer Cristian Scaroni, with five wins and 2,399 points, led the charge for the Kazakhstani squad.

Last year, he took out wins at some smaller hilly Classics – the Classic Var and the Giro dell Romagna – in addition to mountain victories at the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes and the Giro d'Italia. There were 14 further top-10 placings in other hilly one-dayers, too, plus a fourth place at the Road European Championships.

Only one of those, the Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa, came at WorldTour level, but Scaroni will surely be a watched rider come the Ardennes Classics. XDS-Astana directeur sportif recently drew a comparison between the Italian and the "early days" of Alejandro Valverde. We'll see whether that comparison rings true come April.

Lukáš Kubiš (Unibet Rose Rockets)

After six years in the Continental ranks, Slovakian champion Lukáš Kubiš got his first shot at ProTeam level with Unibet Rose Rockets last season, and the 26-year-old grabbed it with both hands.

Kubiš impressed throughout the spring and the rest of the year, recording 33 top-10 results between February's Etoile de Bessèges and October's Tour of Holland. Along the way came top 10s at both Opening Weekend races plus Nokere Koerse and the Muur Classic Geraardsbergen, showcasing his ability to perform on the cobbles at the highest level.

This year's spring campaign will see him given a chance at an even higher level, with Unibet Rose Rockets scoring invites to every major Classic between Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Paris-Roubaix. Kubiš will be at all of them, including the Tour of Flanders, and he'll be the most-watched man on his team.

Magdeleine Vallieres Mill (EF Education-Oatly)

It may be odd to include reigning world champion Magdeleine Vallieres Mill in our list, but the Canadian's big win in Rwanda came before any big breakthrough in the spring.

The 24-year-old shot to a surprise breakaway victory in the hills of Kigali last September, but, despite her relative lack of Classics success beforehand, it was far from a fluke as she attacked at the lead of the race on the last lap.

She finished her season inside the top 10 at the Giro dell'Emilia and Tre Valli Varesine, having earlier finished 12th at De Brabantse Pijl and 14th at La Flèche Wallonne in the spring. Her Worlds triumph will certainly raise expectations for this year's Ardennes Classics.

Bastien Tronchon (Groupama-FDJ United)

FDJ's longtime Classics leader, Swiss nearly man Stefan Küng, has departed after seven years, and so a Classics leadership role has opened up at the French squad. 29-year-old Valentin Madouas is the man most likely to step up, with podiums at Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders to his name, but there should be opportunities for others, too.

Bastien Tronchon, 23, will race the full complement of cobbled Classics for the first time this season after being let go by Decathlon-CMA CGM over the winter.

He's already shown form on rough roads, having finished second at the Clásica Jaén two years ago and taken victory at Tro-Bro Léon last spring. Both races are run on dirt rather than cobblestones, but Tronchon will surely be a name to watch, both this spring and in the coming seasons.

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We'll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Find out more.

Ethan Brown has grown up in the heartland of the US, just north of Indianapolis, Indiana. It's a landscape scattered with endless rows of cornstalks and soybeans and is a hub for motorsports with the IndyCar and NASCAR racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But a simple red bike caught the attention of a young Brown and it turned simple pedal strokes into a growing passion.

He then developed a need for speed on the grounds of the Major Taylor Velodrome, between his family's suburban home and the auto racing speedway, but not on the steep concrete banks of the outdoor track. Instead, he gravitated to cyclo-cross, with the home course of Major Taylor Cross Cup and local races becoming a fixture for the past eight years.

Brown has gone from top 35 placings at Major Taylor 'Cross Cup as a 10-year-old to US men's 17-18 junior national champion. This season at age 17 was a breakout year for the Indiana native, earning six regular-season wins in the US, going runner-up for junior men at both US Cyclocross Series and Pan-American Cyclo-cross Championships and riding to his first top 20 at a World Cup (Flamanville in November). In the new calendar year, he then finished as the top US junior men's rider at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships with 16th place.

With the 'cross season melting away in the approach to spring, Brown is back to classes at Hamilton Southeastern High School to finish his junior year. He's done with junior racing and spoke to Cyclingnews about a move to the U23 division, how he would like to develop like Dutch rider Tibor Del Grosso, silver medalist in the elite division of Cyclo-cross Worlds at just 22, and next steps to continue his education.

Cyclingnews: Tell us about where you grew up in the US and how you fell in love with cycling.

Ethan Brown: Prior to my discovery of cyclo-cross, I was introduced to cycling through a junior triathlon race series. I was always an active kid, tried all the typical sports of the community - soccer, baseball, gymnastics, wrestling, even had a small career in break dancing at some point, but never seemed to feel at home with these sports.

My mom, on a whim, signed me up for a summer series of triathlons. I loved it so much, I quickly told her I needed a better bike. The search began, a red Diamondback was found, and in the process so was Midwest Devo. With my arms draped over the velodrome walls watching practice or racing, I turned and said, "I want to do this".

I joined Midwest Devo, and really just never looked back. Midwest Devo really emphasizes the importance in the younger years of having fun while riding your bike. I found friends, bikes, trails, and we rode as much and as often as we could. I was probably a bit late to the game as compared to others with actual planned training schedules and coaching.

CN: What do you enjoy most about cyclo-cross and what has been your favourite US race?

EB: Over the many years of racing and being on a team, I have realized that I think I love all the bike skills you learn in cyclo-cross. I have always been one to love a good challenge, and cyclo-cross always seemed to provide that for me. When I was younger, I remember one of my only goals at Trek CX Cup was to be able to ride up the log steps. Trek CX Cup was actually one of the first big races that I traveled to, and I don't think I have missed a year since we started going.

CN: ⁠You've raced primarily for Midwest NXT and attended 'cross camps in 2023 and 2024 in Montana with EuroCrossAcademy. What else do you attribute to your breakout performances this season, winning the US men's junior cyclo-cross title?

EB: My favorite highlight of the last couple years is the training camps we do every year at my teammate's cabin in Brown County, Indiana. We camp, have a fire, build trails and jumps, and ride lots of miles on the gravel of Hoosier National Forest.

Looking back over the years, I love how many people that I have gotten to meet all over the US and the world. I travel with my teammates' families a lot, and at some point we all just blend together into one extended family. This extended family that surrounds me with support, friendship, and guidance is what drives me.

Of course, my national championship win is a big highlight. It was many years in the making, but really a part of my daily thoughts and training for 12 months. I still have a hard time putting into words how that one felt, but I replay the memory frequently. I have met so many people throughout this process that have contributed to my success.

CN: You have now competed at Cyclo-cross Worlds twice as a junior. What made racing in Hulst for Team USA special this season?

EB: My mom, sister, and aunt were all in Hulst this year for Worlds - I knew my mom was coming but my sister and aunt actually surprised me. My teammate was also in Hulst, and his entire family was there too cheering us both on. I know my grandma was up watching on FloBikes, along with teammates and friends that I have grown up riding and traveling with. The amount of texts and messages I got after the race was amazing, knowing that even if people weren't up watching, they were following along on social media. I'm pretty focused on my routine before races, but once the race was over I could really take in all the support people were giving. I have raced at Hulst once before, and really like the technical aspect of this course.

CN: Tell us about the race itself, and what you recall doing differently than 2024.

EB: Starting the race, I envisioned myself in a tunnel, being catapulted forward. My favorite part of the race was when I passed three riders on one of the downhills. My coach saw it and said it was pretty crazy!

I honestly am so much in the zone when I am racing, I don't really hear the crowds too much. I did hear a few familiar voices yelling a couple times though. But after, I had a chance to really soak up the crowd vibe and watch the men's elite race for a while before I left. The crowds are definitely so different in the US, and I love how hyped everyone gets in Europe.

CN: ⁠⁠Who have been your role models in the sport of cycling growing up? What do you appreciate about that person/people?

EB: When I was younger, I really looked up to a lot of the older riders on Midwest Devo and wanted to ride just like them. Now that I'm older, I look up to Tibor Del Grosso. When I watch him ride, he seems very calm and in control, and like his bike is just a part of him. His whole body is still except his legs are moving. He just seems to be very focused and determined. I guess he just looks cool to me when he rides.

CN: You move out of the junior division in the fall so do you have any goals at a new level?

EB: Moving up to U23 is going to be a challenge, but like I said before, I love a good challenge. I really feel like I am ready for this next step. I haven't set any specific goals yet, but a call soon to my coach is probably on the books. You can find me as I continue my cycling journey with Midwest NXT.

CN: What other objectives have you set for yourself in 2026, off the bike?

EB: I have also started my college search, planning a trip to Colorado for spring break but also plan to look locally too. It's pretty set though that I want to continue competing at a high level hopefully on a collegiate team. When I'm not training, I love to do anything outdoors. I've been skiing a couple times since I have been home from Worlds, and I also love to camp and ride my scooter.

This week's Volta ao Algarve sees a host of big GC names go head-to-head for the first time in 2026, including João Almeida, Juan Ayuso, and Oscar Onley. But besides those established stars, the race also marks the first high-level stage race for one of cycling's hottest young talents.

20-year-old Belgian Jarno Widar will lead Lotto-Intermarché at the race. In the past two seasons, he has won the Giro d'Italia Next Gen, the Ronde de l'Isard, two editions of the Giro Valle d'Aosta, the under-23 European road race title, and the under-23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

All those achievements, in addition to last year's second place at the Tour de l'Avenir behind Paul Seixas, mean his neo-pro season this year is widely anticipated.

Widar has already made his professional bow, racing to fourth place at the Figueira Champions Classic at the weekend, and now he's ready to test himself in the Algarve.

"I've been scouting both the finishes in Fóia and Malhão these past few days. They suit my abilities, but have you seen the field yet? I'm still five steps away from that level," Widar told Het Nieuwsblad, calming any hype before he takes on Almeida, Ayuso, Onley, as well as Seixas and Florian Lipowitz.

"I was still lacking some racing rhythm [at Figueira]. The feeling was okay, but it didn't have any punch yet, which is what I expected. I'll get better the more I race. The explosiveness will come naturally."

Despite his remark that he's some way away from matching those established racers listed above, Widar is still looking forward to testing himself against them. He is the Lotto leader, after all.

"I'm really looking forward to competing against all those top athletes. It's a unique opportunity, so early in the season," he said.

"What do I expect? That I'll suffer. I'm not at my best yet, and that's not allowed. But I've taken another step this winter, and I do feel that way.

'It's a dream to be able to compete against these guys for a result. And you always want the very best, that's understandable. The team has also appointed me as their leader; I shouldn't sacrifice myself for anyone. So yes, I'm going for a result."

My View

Widar's 2026 has already been planned out, with plenty of action at WorldTour level, too.

Strade Bianche, Itzulia Basque Country, La Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège are the highlights of his spring. Later in the year, there are appointments at the Tour de Suisse, Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa, and the Vuelta a Burgos en route to a planned Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a España.

Coming up in the near future are a host of one-day races on the way to Strade Bianche, however, with the Faun-Ardèche Classic, Faun-Drôme Classic, and Trofeo Laigueglia on the menu.

"Those are ideal races to secure a result," Widar said.

"A top-five finish in Laigueglia is, by the way, a bit easier than in Strade Bianche. The real top riders are at the start there, and I'll also be racing against Tadej Pogačar for the first time. He's a huge role model for me; I watch him race every day with amazement.

"I shouldn't really say it as a Belgian, but for me, he's the best cyclist of all time. In an era of specialisation, he simply does everything. That's what's unique about Tadej."

As the European season gets underway in Spain, a new generation of Spanish riders is coming through to try and make their mark, with riders like 22-year-old National Champion Iván Romeo (Movistar) very much amongst their number.

Now in his fourth season, Romeo had a breakthrough 2025, following up his victory in the World Championships under-23 time trial in 2024 with a spectacular solo stage win of the Critérium du Dauphiné last year and then another lone triumph a few weeks later at the Spanish Nationals.

However, while Spanish interest will logically be high in seeing how far Romeo can push the bar in 2026, it will likely be even higher elsewhere. The ongoing achievements of Juan Ayuso, coupled with his dramatic switch to the Lidl-Trek team from UAE Team Emirates, mean the 2022 Vuelta a España podium finisher – at 19, the second youngest in the race's history - and 2025 Tirreno-Adriatico winner remains the top young Spanish rider to watch this season.

"There's a very promising group of young riders coming through, but they are still eclipsed by Ayuso," Fernando Ferrari, a longstanding Spanish cycling journalist and editor of the specialist website Ciclo21, tells Cyclingnews.

"Ayuso's still only 23, so he can qualify for the Tour's Best Young Rider classification, and he's still on an upward curve."

Others to watch Spain's younger generations, says Ferrari, are Haimar Etxebarría (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), formed in the Kern Pharma team and its feeder squad, and now progressing under the close eye of fellow Basque and Red Bull sports director Patxi Vila. Meanwhile, Pablo Castrillo (Movistar), a double Vuelta stage winner in 2024 and, like Etxeberría, a former Kern Pharma racer, could well impact in 2026, too.

This season should also see whether Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers), previously touted as a major new Spanish hope alongside Ayuso, but whose career has been blighted by injuries, can finally put his career back on track this year.

That's just in the men's side of the sport. 22-year-old Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) already had a brilliant first year in the pros, taking five one-day races, including a stage of the Tour de Romandie as well as the U23 European Championships road race and a bronze in the U23 World Championships equivalent event. She has already followed that up with third overall in the Tour Down Under in 2026.

Then the newest kid on the block on the elite women's side is Paula Ostiz (Movistar), whose spectacular run of success at Junior level last autumn – a silver medal in the Worlds Junior TT followed by three gold medals in the World Championships road race and both European titles - precedes her first year as a racer.

"The jump from Junior to Elite is a big one, and we'll see how she adapts to the new category," Ferrari added. "For example, Cat Ferguson" – already the winner of a race in Mallorca this season at 19 – "managed it very well. But maybe we'll have to give Ostiz some time to progress. For now, Blasi is the one to watch the closest."

As for Romeo, already fourth in the European season-opening Classica Camp de Morvedre on Friday, he will be taking part in all five of the Challenge Mallorca events before going on to the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie, Critérium du Dauphiné, Tour de Suisse and Tour de France. Then in the second half of the season, he'll be at the World Championships.

Regarding what he hopes to achieve, "It's very difficult to know," he told AS in a recent interview.

"Obviously, I've got better, but everybody's getting a lot better these days.

"I've got some unfinished business with the Tour" - where he had a bad crash, but still made it to Paris - "so I want to try and win a stage, that'll be the big goal of the year. Anything after that would be a bonus."

Gaining experience at this stage is vital, and Romeo already got "a heck of a lot out of the Tour already. It's much more of a rollercoaster than I imagined."

"I'm very consistent, I don't tend to have too many bad days, but the Tour is something else. You're not 'you', you're another person; the Tour changes you completely. I hope this year I can improve a lot more."

"The crash I had was the only one I had in the whole of 2025, so I can't blame myself even if I am a real perfectionist."

Romeo recounted to AS that he had had a "really bad time of it" in the stage over the Loze in the Alps, and he was "fed up to the back teeth with everything."

"I had some muscular problems, and I was in a bad place, really close to abandoning. I was so sick of everything, I just wanted to get to Paris." As a result, he was inattentive during a storm, took a curve "way too fast" and fell heavily."

He still reached Paris, though, and is now looking for new challenges in 2026.

"I'm just hoping I don't have any serious injuries, that my brother" – Sergio, racing with Kern Pharma's devo team – "doesn't have any either, and we'll handle the rest," he said confidently.

Meanwhile, Ferrari is more convinced that Ayuso is the rider who will keep the flame flying in the Grand Tours.

"Right now, I don't see anybody in Spain who's capable of reaching Ayuso's level one day in Grand Tours. Romeo's more for time trials, one-day races, stages and so on," he told Cyclingnews.

"But saying that, I felt the same way about Miguel Indurain back in the day before he started winning, so who knows?"

Until Simon Yates made the surprise decision to retire before the start of the 2026 season, his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Ben Tulett did not have a Tour de France debut on his calendar. However, since the Giro d'Italia winner hung up his bike, that has opened doors for the 24-year-old Tulett.

Speaking to Wielerflits, Tulett explained how Yates' decision changed the trajectory of his season.

"Simon is a rider that I've looked up to my whole career - he's achieved so much in this sport. Congratulations to him. I was really happy to have been a teammate of his for one year, and to have learned a lot from him during that time."

Yates made the announcement that he was retiring at age 33 on January 7, and Tulett said, "It was also a big shock for the team and, of course, the riders in the team as well.

"We had a plan for 2026, already with Simon as a part of those plans. That's now changed, so it looks like there's definitely some changes coming to my calendar, personally. So that's also exciting. One door closes, another one opens - take the opportunities where they come."

Tulett will start his season at the Vuelta a Andalucía Ruta del Sol, with Strade Bianche, Itzulia Basque Country, and the Ardennes Classics on his schedule, too. Although a return to the Vuelta a España, where he finished 24th overall while helping Jonas Vingegaard to the overall victory, was on his calendar, that could change.

He has been provisionally listed on the Tour de France roster alongside Jonas Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss, Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson, with Victor Campenaerts, Christophe Laporte and Bruno Armirail also likely on the team.

The Tour de France, Tulett said, "Is definitely a possibility, and it's something that if it does happen, we'll be there and we'll be ready to race. That's also something really exciting and motivating."

Tulett has shown his stage racing talent with the overall victory in the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali last March and a podium in the Tour de l'Ain behind then-teammate Cian Uijtdebroeks last year. He also won the Tour of Norway in 2023 while racing with Ineos.

Despite his talent and racing at the highest level since turning pro with Alpecin-Fenix in 2020, Tulett has only competed in two Grand Tours - the Vuelta last year and the Giro d'Italia in 2022 - racing as a contender in these high profile races is his career goal.

"My long-term objective is to target the GC in the Grand Tours. I want to be competitive when I pin the number on, and of course, I want to win races, so that has to be the priority. Every time there's an opportunity to win, I want to be there and take those opportunities."

Tulett should get plenty of chances to follow up on that promise as he's been named to Visma-Lease a Bike's 'white jersey group' - a list of 11 under-25 riders the team is committed to developing.

"I think it's definitely a really nice project from the team to develop the younger riders in this team into doing the bigger races and trying to win the biggest races in the WorldTour program. If you look at the history of it, it's worked very well, and we can learn a lot from it."

With the departure of Yates and, last year, Uijtdebroeks, Tulett and his young teammates have a couple of pairs of shoes to fill, too.

"I believe in the next years I can get the best out of myself here as a rider. Of course, that brings a lot of trust - trust from the team, and trusting myself as well. So yeah, that's what we focus on and just keep building step by step."

In a revamp to the race's long-standing format, the men's Tour de l'Avenir, the leading stage race for riders on the amateur and under-23 circuit, will open up to development squads of professional teams from this year.

The race, which holds a reputation as a 'young rider's Tour de France' with past winners including Greg LeMond, Miguel Indurain, Egan Bernal, and Tadej Pogačar, has been contested by national selections since 2007.

This year, however, race organisers A-VELO have requested that the UCI classify the race as a 2.2U, meaning that, from this season, Continental development teams will be able to take part alongside any national teams that continue to participate.

"This evolution of the rules of participation in the Tour de l'Avenir is fully in line with the reality of today's high-level cycling, which has seen, as a consequence of the reform of professional cycling initiated by the UCI, professional teams gradually investing in the reception and training of (very) young riders by creating development teams, veritable nurseries of the UCI WorldTour ecosystem," the organisers announced in a statement released on Thursday.

"The Tour de l'Avenir thus confirms its vocation as a talent scout, wherever they come from, whether they are part of a national team or a professional team."

This news comes after the UCI announced the end of the under-23 Nations' Cup series, which was raced by national teams, in favour of development team-led UCI races. UCI president David Lappartient initially said in September that the Tour de l'Avenir would remain an exception raced by national teams, but that appears to have changed in the last months.

The Tour de l'Avenir Femmes, launched in 2023, is expected to continue with national teams for the time being, given the very small number of women's U23 development outfits.

The 2026 edition of the men's Tour de l'Avenir will run from August 19-27, although the route has yet to be announced. Recent winners Isaac Del Toro, Joseph Blackmore, and Paul Seixas will not be taking part, with the trio currently racing on WorldTour squads.

The race has been held since 1961 and has been through several iterations. At times, it has been open to professionals, and, after 1992, it was open to all riders under the age of 25. Since 2007, the race has been run as part of the UCI Nations Cup, with only riders between the ages of 18 and 22 racing in national teams invited.

A-VELO confirmed that 10 WorldTour development squads will be taking part in 2026, including those of Ineos Grenadiers, Soudal-QuickStep, and Visma-Lease a Bike. A list of national teams taking part will be released at a later date.

If the quietly promising Valentina Cavallar wasn't already on cycling fans' radars before, she certainly will be in 2026, after becoming one of just two new recruits to one of the peloton's most important teams, SD Worx-Protime.

Following a rapid ascension from non-cyclist to future Grand Tour contender, Austria's Cavallar joined the Dutch squad at the start of this year, and is one of the most interesting – yet still not very well known – prospects in the bunch.

A top-level rower through her teens and early 20s, the 24-year-old represented Austria at the Tokyo Olympics, finishing 14th in the lightweight double sculls. But after a decade on the water, a cycling trip to watch the 2022 Tour de France Femmes set her sailing in a different direction.

Despite only joining the pro peloton in mid-2024, Cavallar made waves very quickly with some seriously impressive results, including fourth at the Alpes Gresivaudan Classic, second at the National Championships, and then seventh atop Alpe d'Huez in her Tour de France debut.

Her clear talent had earned her a multi-year contract with Arkéa-B&B Hotels, but when that team folded, the door opened to step up to the Women's WorldTour – and it was none other than women's cycling's original super team that secured her signature. Cavallar joined SD Worx-Protime for 2026, and has a three-year contract there, where she'll be one of their next big climbing hopes.

Just a few days into the new year, Cavallar made her first appearance for the team at their launch in Antwerp. Cyclingnews sat down with other media for a roundtable discussion with the young Austrian, to discuss her entry into the sport, the challenges in the peloton, and her dreams for the future – which are already big.

Q: You were in the Olympics as a rower and now you're in one of the best cycling teams in the world, how did that happen? When did you know it was time to change sports?

VC: I started rowing at 13 and I was rowing until 2022. I have been a passionate rower for 10 years, so a really long time, but we always trained a lot on the indoor bike. It was not on the road, mainly indoors, as endurance trainer. I was at the Olympics in 2021, and the year afterwards I still tried to pursue my rowing goals because yeah, I was at the Olympics, but I was only in the B finals, so it was not a super success for me personally and I was also quite young at only 20.

But then at the training camp the next year, we were on the German-French border, and we went with our road bikes and it was when the Tour de France Femmes happened and we followed one of the stages on the Petit Ballon. There I fell in love with my bike, and it was so special that I thought 'yeah, I really want to do this, it would be a dream to become a professional cyclist'. A year later, I thought 'OK, I will give myself a go and just try it' and I think if you love what you're doing, you can achieve the goals you set for yourself, and this is what I did.

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about what you did for work whilst you were a rower?

VC: I worked a little bit as a fitness coach alongside rowing. I did this for maybe one or two years, and then before the Olympics I stopped, and my parents helped me a little bit financially. In rowing, you don't get paid for being a rower, only if you go to the military [in Austria] but I waited really long for a spot in the military. In 2022 I got a spot, but it was already too late, because I already knew that I wanted to become a cyclist, so it wasn't an option anymore.

I'm still studying law, but just more as a hobby, a little bit in the winter.

Q: What do you love most about cycling, and what is the biggest change in your life after switching sports?

VC: It's a completely different sport of course. First overall, a rowing race was only eight minutes long, and you had your own lane and you only had to go all-out, you didn't have so many tactics, you didn't have a team radio, you didn't have to figure out how to fuel during the race because it's so short. In cycling, you have so many different components, like the nutrition on the bike, the other teams, the team tactics and different race tactics, the length of the race – it's three to four hours longer – so this makes it also exciting.

There are so many areas, I'm still so inexperienced so I can still learn a lot and there are still areas I want to improve and can improve a lot. This is for me the biggest difference between the two sports. The biggest benefit is that in rowing, you couldn't make a living from the sport, I was also working alongside training and racing, and this made it really not sustainable. Luckily the women's side is developing rapidly in cycling, and I caught a good timing, so you can make a living out of it, so this is a big, big privilege.

Q: There are a lot of riders who come from other sports and have big engines, but we hear stories of them struggling with riding in the peloton, how was that side of things for you?

VC: Definitely this also still one of my biggest weaknesses, riding in the peloton, the descending, and finding my space in the peloton, this is definitely something I struggled with a lot in my first season. Which is completely natural, I think, and especially not being a sprinter kind of rider, it's even harder to learn those things. But as I also said before, this is one of the things that makes it so exciting, because I love to learn and improve, and I know that I can be a good rider in the peloton and a good descender, but it needs time and I still need to make those improvements. But it's not something I see as a really bad thing, because it's another thing I can improve to be a better and more successful rider.

Q: What is the challenge about being in the peloton, is it the mentality?

VC: I had my first race last year [2024] in Chambéry, it was a 1.2 race I think, so not a WorldTour race, but my first time riding in the peloton, and I remember that the first thing I noticed, even before the race started, I was standing in the peloton and we were all waiting for the start, and I could feel how close we were to each other. You heart rate is already elevated, it's already a bit loud, there are a lot of noises. This made it hard to not lose too much energy.

Now I'm a bit more used to riding in the peloton, but I waste a lot of energy, because there's so much you need to be attentive to, sometimes it's noisy or hectic, you're touching each other, touching wheels, maybe there's a crash or road furniture you didn't see. There's so many factors that make your nervous system be a bit more alert, and this uses a lot of energy. For me this is the main problem, because when I'm riding all the time in the peloton, I can feel that I'm getting really tired, so sometimes I couldn't ride there for the whole race, and then I'm at the back of the peloton and then you waste more energy closing gaps.

Q: The first time you showed yourself at a world-class level was at the Tour de France in 2024, and it surprised people when you were there in the final of the Queen stage. Did you surprise yourself there too?

VC: It was for sure a really big achievement. I can't exactly define it as a surprise. I mean, it was only afterwards that I really realised that it was a big achievement to climb with the best in the world. I didn't believe myself that I would manage to do this in my first season as a cyclist, and I hadn't done any races before last year. I did my first stage race at Itzulia and then my first Tour de France, it was only my fifteenth race or something so I didn't have any big expectations. But deep down I always knew that I love climbing so much and that I'm at home at the mountains and I can climb really well if the shape is there, if the training goes well, and my endurance capacity helps me a lot on the climbs.

Q: What are you main goals for this year, your first season with SD Worx-Protime?

VC: It's a huge step up. Everything is completely different, in a positive way. First of all, for me the biggest advantage is that I can learn from some of the best riders in the world, and this is exactly what I always wanted to have, that I could learn from teammates – ride with them, for them, and help them to win races. I want to race because I want to win, and this is exactly what this team is made for.

Q: Has it been a shock to be in a Dutch team with all these Dutch riders and staff, who can be quite direct?

VC: Honestly I love it! It's really one of the things I appreciate. For me, being honest but also direct is one of the most profound characteristics, and this helps to be more professional, to get feedback ASAP, no matter if it's harsh or hard or you don't want to hear it or something. It's important, especially in terms of mistakes or the professional side, to have it this way. I have already had some bad experiences where if people are not completely direct they can talk behind each other's backs, and for a team that's not worth it. So I like this Dutch way of communicating between each other, it's a positive thing.

Q: What will your programme look like in 2026?

VC: The team is taking it a little bit more slowly with me, so I don't have any races before March basically, and then the programme is still not completely clear. For sure I will do Itzulia and the Vuelta, so the Spanish block, and Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. But before then, what my first real race will be, the team will sort out a little bit later in January.

Q: Are there any particular races where you want to get a good result for yourself?

VC: For this first year, I will try to take it one step at a time, but I definitely want to win stage races, and I definitely want to win Grand Tours in the future, maybe starting this year already but in the future this is a long-term goal. This year I definitely want to win one climbing finish in a stage race.

For a group of 14 US teenagers who have enjoyed success at home cyclo-cross races, competing for results in Belgium with the EuroCrossAcademy took an unexpected back seat to lessons in humility and patience during the intense two weeks of racing at 'kerstperiode'.

Graden Daume of Missoula, Montana, and Matthew Crabbe of Buford, Georgia, both 16 years old, who will race in the 17-18 division in 2026, admitted that he larger fields, elevated level of competition, and highly-touted course conditions were indeed formidable and downright "fast and messy".

The Christmas period adventure finished with the Superprestige in Diegem, the Exact Cross in Mol, and in Zonhoven for the non-World Cup junior race for the seven women and seven men on the ECA's 17-18 team.

Zonhoven featured the same technical plunge into De Kuil, 'the pit' of deep sand, as conquered later in the day by elite winners Mathieu van der Poel and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, both with Alpecin-Premier Tech.

Three of the US junior women finished with top 15 honours at Zonhoven: Tessa Beebe came in sixth, Kira Mullins in ninth, and Daume in 13th. A trio of US junior men finished in the top 20: Crabbe in 16th, while his compatriots were close by, Noah Scholnick in 13th, and Jacob Hines in 17th.

“ECA worked with a total of seven women, seven men during this recent kerst block, and we couldn’t be prouder of how they all put their best foot forward and finished what they started, fully invested, and fully motivated," said Geoff Proctor, ECA founder and director.

"To date, it was probably one of our best European blocks. Holistic relationship and character-building, caring coaches and mechanics, optimal performance environment, and great communication and organization. With this culminating kerst' block, I really feel like we helped bring these athletes to a competitive European level.”

Both Daume and Crabbe had raced in Europe prior to the ECA block, coming off stellar seasons at home. Crabbe earned a silver medal at US Cyclo-cross Nationals in the men's junior division, a year after winning the 15-16 men's title and a national junior title on the track. He started the 'cross season in the US, winning two of four races before he traveled to Europe for two blocks racing, netting top 20s in half of eight races.

Daume came off a fourth-place finish at US Cyclo-cross Nationals in the women's junior division, having stacked up 10 top 10s at US races in the fall. Last year, she earned a silver medal at 'cross nationals in the 15-16 division as well as silver at Pan-American Cyclo-cross Championships.

The ECA provides an opportunity for the 17-18 juniors to experience different cultures and nurture life skills while developing cyclo-cross talents along the way. Daune and Crabbe provide their insights with journal entries about the knowledge they gained, coming on a slippery slope for both athletic and character discovery.

Graden Daume - Within the chaos come lessons about humility and pride

Cyclo-cross racing is fast but messy, painful yet joyful, individual but deeply communal. Riders line up with clean bikes and high hopes, only to be swallowed minutes later by mud, sand, barriers, and fatigue. Within this chaos, cyclo-cross teaches a powerful lesson about humility and pride.

Humility in cyclo-cross is really important. No matter how much preparation and training you do, nothing can truly prepare you for race day. There will be crashes, mistakes, and heartbreak. But if cyclo-cross has taught me anything, it’s that every time you cross that finish line, you have learned something new.

Whether the race was horrible or the best race of your life, you come out of it with humility because you know that everyone on that start line desires to be the best, to be the one who stands on the top of the podium. Even when you are doing your best, you must stay humble and thoughtful to the people around you.

Being able to listen to your teammates, provide support, understand how they are doing, and keeping in mind what it feels like to be in that moment where something did or didn't go the way you wanted, is part of what makes cyclocross so communal. Cyclo-cross humbles riders by forcing them to accept failure publicly and sometimes repeatedly.

Pride is also very present in cyclo-cross. Pride fuels perseverance. So many things can happen or go wrong in a cyclocross race, between your body, bike mechanics, the weather, and finishing a race despite everything builds a deep sense of self-respect, resilience, and grit.

Crossing the line, muddy, tired, and spent, brings a quiet confidence. You feel proud of what you have accomplished and learned, and when you look back to see just how far you have come, it makes you realize that one bad race is not going to define you; if anything, it will help you grow and discover what you need to work and build on. Pride is a strong emotion, don't try to hide your pride, be happy and be proud of what you have accomplished but it's important to balance pride with humbleness to continue growing.

In the end, cyclo-cross is more than a race; it is a mirror. It reflects strengths and weaknesses. Riders learn to accept both with grace. The mud strips away ego, while the struggle builds confidence.

Through every lap, cyclo-cross teaches that true pride is grounded in humility and that the most meaningful victories often happen far from the podium.

Matthew Crabbe - I need to be more patient

The cyclo-cross season isn’t very nice most of the time. It’s long. The weather is crap. I had six travel days of 14 hours each across the Atlantic (three trips to Europe). The season is especially hard when the results I had hoped for at the beginning aren’t coming my way.

For the last three or four years, I have found a good bit of success domestically, but also internationally last winter. I had won four straight US National Championships. Half of my races in Europe were over the EuroCrossAcademy 15-16 November block.

I think I carried this success into the season with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I felt like I would be able to jump straight into the new UCI 17-18 category with the same level of success. I was misled by early success in Rochester and Waterloo, with two wins and another two top 5’s. I went to Belgium at the beginning of October to try my hand at my first set of European UCI races. I was hoping for some top 10’s and maybe even a podium or two. I ended the month-long trip with half of the races ending with top 15 finishes and the other half ending with costly mistakes.

The Pan-American Championships (in Washington, DC) were very shortly after I came home, but I was hoping to feel recovered enough to give it a good go for a boost of confidence. I was in fact not recovered and burned the only match I had left too early in the race that ended with a fifth place.

Going into the end of November was the first US National Team trip of the season to the first two World Cups in Tábor and Flamanville. These were a big step from the races I had done in October. Those were only the best of Belgium, but this was the best of every country in Europe.

A mistake that costs you one place at home costs you almost ten places here. Those kinds of mistakes led to two top 35 finishes. It was okay, but still not what I wanted.

I had a strong showing at the National Championships with a second place, and that was good confidence coming into the ECA block we are in now. I was hoping to carry that great form into the upcoming seven races in Belgium with ECA.

I almost did that at our first race, Antwerp, where I came 12th. It matched my best result from October and I wanted to build on that into a top 10 finish. This hunger became too much.

In the following races, I went out too hard or too aggressively trying to achieve this. It led to mistakes or blow ups halfway through the race. What was once within touching distance now seemed miles away. The results were falling down a slippery slope.

The racing is different in Europe. Nothing is handed to you. Forcing things leads to catastrophic mistakes. I was striving too hard and trying to force a result. The struggles of the season were bearing on me. I needed a result that I could look back on the season and could say it was good enough. But this panic and over-eagerness led to mistakes that could have been easily avoided to get me to a better finish.

Going forward, I need to let the races come to me. I need to be more patient. More resilient. Smoother.

I caught myself on this slippery slope in Diegem. I made no major mistakes, no crashes. There was still room for improvement, but it was an improvement, 22nd. This is compared to the bottom of the slope the day before in Loenhout, 73rd.

I want to be one of the best. I want to ride at the front. But it will take time. For now it is still learning. But learning I am, so, soon I will get there.

ECA 17-18 December 2025-January 2026 races

• December 20 - Antwerp, Belgium (non-world cup for juniors)
• December 22 - Hofstade X2O Trophee, Belgium (MJR only)
• December 23 - Zolder SuperPrestige, Belgium
• December 26 - Beernem Concap CX Cup, Belgium (WJR only)
• December 29 - Loenhout X2O Trophee, Belgium
• December 30 - Diegem SuperPrestige, Belgium
• January 2 - Mol Exact Cross, Belgium
• January 4 - Zonhoven, Belgium (non-world cup for juniors)
• Roster note: Graden Daume was among four riders joining ECA for the final three races

The Yuletide festivities of December mean one thing for cyclo-cross enthusiasts and racers - Kerstperiode - a Dutch/Flemish term used to describe the cluster of 'cross races that take place between Christmas and New Year's Day. Most of the races are in Belgium and that is where 14 young US athletes will train and race for two weeks with the EuroCrossAcademy.

This group was exclusively for 17-18 year olds, something the ECA and founder Geoff Proctor have done for more than 20 years; the 15-16 block for ECA took place in November. Among the pinnacles of racing in Europe was a chance to ride the sand of Belgium. And not just any sand, but the celebrated sand of Antwerp, where Mathieu van der Poel excelled eight times, and the "terrifying" deep sand at Zolder.

On a day after the first race of the block in Belgium, at Antwerp, the teenagers took part in a recon ride in Hofstade, a course used for X2O Trophee series, with French Technical Coach and former junior and U23 cyclo-cross world champion Arnaud Jouffroy. The junior men then competed in back-to-back races at Plage Cross and Heusden-Zolder while the junior women raced at Zolder only.

Hadley Molnar, a 17-year-old from Cary, North Carolina, just outside Raleigh, won three women's junior 'cross races this season, including both days at Charm City Cross in Maryland. In her first race overseas, she finished 11th at Cyclocross Antwerp, with the world's best elite racers taking the same course in the afternoon for the fifth round of the World Cup series.

In the men's junior race at Antwerp, 16-year-old Jacob Hines of Baltimore, Maryland finished 19th. Then two days later at Plage Cross in Hofstade, Belgium, part of the X2O Trofee series for junior men, Hines was the top US rider in sixth place. He had participated in the ECA European block of racing last year with a group of 15-16-year olds, so was one of the 'veterans'.

The primary goals for young athletes with ECA are to experience different cultures, gain cyclo-cross skills and develop personally, and the racing was actually a way to incorporate all these learnings on legendary courses. These two US riders came into the first week of the trip with general goals - Molnar wanted to build race confidence and Hines wanted to develop mental toughness to earn a top 10.

The duo described for Cyclingnews in the latest ECA journal how they reached these goals. See the full roster below.

Hadley Molnar - Learning to race bikes and to 'race'

The tactics and skills I am learning while racing with ECA here in Belgium are very valuable, but I am also learning a lot of valuable things about myself. I tend to doubt myself a lot. But with these races, there's no time to have doubt. Every moment when you think about anything other than the next turn or the next feature is a moment gone, and you have already lost.

I rode through the hole shot at the back of 40-plus riders [at Heusden-Zolder]. I didn’t think I could make it in that big of a field. I got to the tricky turn of course. I ran up the first few laps because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to ride it.

When you think you can’t do it, you can’t.

The sandy downhills were absolutely terrifying. I didn't know if I would make it down to them. I was doubting myself and my capabilities.

What was I holding back for? Fear? No. This is cyclo-cross. This is where I want to be. I remember watching this exact race, Zolder, on the TV as I rode on my trainer pretending I was racing along with the pros. And now I am here, actually on the course. This is more than just a race. The value of each pedal stroke is more than just to make it to the finish.

Lap three I came up to the same tricky turn that I had run before. I am going to ride this, I can ride this, you can race this. “Look up, look up” Arnaud [Jouffroy, our ECA Technical Coach] said.

I made it. And I made it again on the fourth lap. What makes this time so different than the other laps? As I approached this feature, I thought in my head that I can do it. I never knew how much of a difference that makes until this moment.

I have already made a lot of mistakes. I used to think that was embarrassing or something to be ashamed of, but I understand now that when you try something new or different, mistakes are how you learn. This may be repeated a lot, but I didn’t realize until I got here that failing is what drives you to learn. And how losing can drive you to win.

I am trying to embrace the drive. The drive to learn and the drive to win. If I don’t believe I can make it, then I can’t. I remember what was said to me while I was warming up for our first race at Antwerp, “Take every opportunity, this is the moment.” This is the moment, this is the time and I am going to take aim.

It is true when they say that it doesn’t matter if everyone else believes in you, if you don’t believe in yourself then it really isn’t possible to achieve anything. But this idea goes both ways. If you believe that you can do it, you have a real shot.

I am learning here both how to race bikes and how to really 'race'.

Jacob Hines - Mental toughness through mistakes

Racing cyclo-cross at the highest level in Europe has a way of magnifying every mistake. The races are short, intense and relentless. One little mistake can shuffle you back multiple positions and if you let it happen, that moment can instill a negative thought. The difference is whether you let them take over.

It’s effortless to take the easy way out and let the negatives drag you down. But I’ve learned that toughness isn’t about ignoring mistakes but rather refusing to let them define your whole race.

I came to this ECA trip with two European racing blocks under my belt already, the 2024 ECA 15/16 block and a November World Cup trip with USA Cycling. So, I had some understanding of European culture and the European way of racing.

Prior to this block, ECA Director Geoff Proctor asked all athletes to set goals for the block. My two major goals were, a top 10 finish in a European series race and to learn more about the European approach to racing.

The first race of our ECA block was in Antwerp. I was first call-up with big goals. It was a lower tier junior race at the Antwerp World Cup, so it felt that with a slightly less-competitive field compared to the World Cups earlier in the year, I could fight for a top 10 position. I had a good first lap but crashed in the first sand sector on lap two, immediately passed by five riders. I found my head filled with negative thoughts that probably stopped me from immediately making those spots back up.

Rather continuing to make more mistakes and lose more positions. This cost me the result I was looking for and I ended up finishing 19th. I wasn’t quite satisfied, but neither entirely disappointed. After the race, I had to reset and remind myself of the level of racing here.

After a rest day, we drove to the X20 Trofee Hofstade. We reconned the course with our French Technical Coach, Arnaud Jouffroy. I came into this race with a new mindset. I already had one more race under the belt and was ready to apply what I learned.

We started and I found myself racing in the top 10 after the first lap, eventually working my way up to fighting for fifth place. I then settled into a group of three fighting for sixth.

As we approached the final two laps, I heard Geoff [Proctor] yelling from the pit, “Win your group,” something he also told me before the start. This really stuck with me.

At the start of the final lap, I caught myself almost settling for eighth, but I stayed strong and fought it out to the end. I ended up riding one of the final sand sectors smoothly and applied pressure out of it, which let me slightly gap my group and hold it to the end.

I crossed the finish completely empty but incredibly proud. Finishing sixth at Hofstade meant a lot to me, not just because of the result, but because of the mental resilience it took to earn it. More than anything, that race reinforced what mental toughness truly means to me, staying present, refusing to settle, and continuing to fight until the very end.

Experience the 2026 cycling season with a Cyclingnews subscription that offers you unlimited access to our unrivalled coverage. Our global team will be on the ground at all the major races to bring you breaking news, in-depth features, exclusive interviews and member-exclusive content. Find out more.

EuroCrossAcademy 17-18 December Euro Block 2025 roster

• Hadley Molnar — Cary, North Carolina (Blue Ridge Cross)
• Anna Olesen — Appleton, Wisconsin (Dirt Camp Racing)
• Annabelle Norris — Lebanon, New Hampshire (Bike Reg / Share Coffee)
• Stella Lehman — Littleton, Colorado (Donovan Racing Development)
• Dylan Reid — Golden, Colorado (Donovan Racing Development)
• Jack Billowitz — Bend, Oregon (Donovan Racing Development)
• Rylan Zacharek — Sheboygan, Wisconsin (Linear Sport Racing Team)
• Roman Lin — Concord, Massachusetts (New England Devo p/b Cadence Health)
• Kira Mullins — Littleton, Colorado (Bear National Team)
• Graden Daume — Missoula, Montana (Team Stampede)
• Tessa Beebe — Boise, Idaho (BYRDS Cycling)
• Noah Scholnick — Williamsport, Pennsylvania (FinKraft Junior Cycling Team)
• Jacob Hines — Baltimore, Maryland (FinKraft Junior Cycling Team)
• Matthew Crabbe — Buford, Georgia (FinKraft Junior Cycling Team)
• Note: four additional riders will be added for races from December 30-January 4

Four national champions and a Nations Cup race winner are among the 10 new riders confirmed for the NSN Development Team next season. The Continental programme enters a seventh season in 2026 with a 20-rider roster.

Following the lead of their WorldTour parent organisation NSN Cycling Team, NSN Devo also boasts a "clear evolution" with a refreshed roster and a team rebrand that includes new registration in Switzerland.

British junior cyclocross champion Oscar Amey joins as the youngest rider in the group, just 17 until December 28, while a trio of 18-year-olds include Canadian junior road champion Ben Morin, Australian junior TT champion Max Goold and Nations Cup race winner Filip Smørås of Norway. Polish under-23 road champion Dawid Lewandowski is also among the new arrivals at just 19 years of age.

Six of the 10 retained riders for 2026 rode with NSN’s professional team this past season, and Australian U23 time trial champion Zac Marriage joins the squad after a successful time as an end-of-year stagiaire, which emphasizes the pathway offered to the highest level of the sport.

"Our team is a real springboard to the WorldTour. We’ve successfully progressed riders into key roles at the highest level before, and that pathway remains a central part of what we do," said Tim Elverson, NSN Devo team manager, in a press release.

“We race as a team to win, but we’re equally focused on every part of the process required to get there. While 2025 was another strong year, the 2026 roster reflects a clear evolution of the squad. We have an exciting group of young riders, including new national champions such as Morin, Goold, Lewandowski, and Amey, alongside many other promising talents. I believe we can win a lot of races – never say never.”

Amey is an example of budding young talent that the team relishes. His cyclocross skills prove he has strong technical abilities and "explosive power", demonstrated at UCI Cyclocross Worlds in February, where he finished sixth in the men's junior division. He was also part of Great Britain's team mixed relay gold medal performance. With a Dutch club team last summer, Amey finished second overall in Austria's Junior Tour and had five podiums in British one-day races.

"Joining the NSN Devo Team means a lot to me, as it’s the next step towards becoming a professional, something I’ve been working towards since I was a kid. My main goal for the season is to fight for podiums and victories in UCI races, while learning as much as possible from the experienced staff and teammates around me,” Amey said in a team statement.

Among the familiar faces on the squad, Moritz Kretschy and Matar Peretz return for their third seasons. The 23-year-old Kretschy won two stages at the Alpes Isere Tour on the devo team, and when called up for an appearance with the parent squad in March, he scored second overall at Tour de Taiwan. Peretz, 20, is one of four Israeli riders on the squad and holds U23 national titles in both the road and time trial races.

The team scored 12 victories in 2025, Australian Brady Gilmore the most prolific winner with a GC title at Circuit des Ardennes and two stage victories at Volta a Portugal. On an appearance with the WorldTour squad, he won the overall at the Tour de Taiwan. He earned a promotion to NSN Cycling Team for next season along with Pau Marti and Floris Van Tricht.

Among the programme's alumni who have had success at the ProTeam and WorldTour levels are Canadian Derek Gee-West, who finished fourth overall at the 2025 Giro d'Italia, and British rider Joseph Blackmore, who won the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2024.

Cyclingnews will cover all of the 2026 cycling transfers from around the men's and women's pelotons with news, analysis, and an updated transfer index, to make sure you don't miss a thing this transfer season.

NSN Development Team roster 2026

• Oscar Amey (GBR)
• Dylan Bibic (CAN)
• Patrick Casey (IRL)
• Roei Edinger (ISR)
• Imry Faingezicht (ISR)
• Alvaro Garcia (ESP)
• Max Goold (AUS)
• Alex Hewes (AUS)
• Moritz Kretschy (GER)
• Dawid Lewandowski (POL)
• Enrique Maranchón (ESP)
• Zac Marriage (AUS)
• Ben Morin (CAN)
• Matar Peretz (ISR)
• Miko Pirinen (FIN)
• Omer Ramon (ISR)
• Filip Smørås (NOR)
• Finlay Tarling (GBR)
• Jens Verbrugghe (BEL)
• Kiaan Watts (NZL)

Last year Makena Kellerman had a close-up view to a chaotic finish in the women's under-23 race at the USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships, with two riders battling for the gold medal colliding and crashing within a bike length of the finish line.

Kellerman followed close behind, her effort rewarded with the silver medal, while Katherine Sarkisov (CXD Trek Bikes) took the win and Cassidy Hickey (CCB p/b Levine Law Group Cycling) settled for bronze. She'll have a completely new look for her victory quest this year at Centennial Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas this weekend, as Hickey and Sarkisov are expected to square off in the elite race.

"​​The crash last year was pretty crazy," Kellerman told Cyclingnews about the race at CX Nationals in Louisville a year ago. "I was empty from that last lap. We came onto the [start-finish] straight and all of a sudden both Cassidy and Katherine were on the ground. It was pretty scary and I was nervous for them because they hit the ground quite hard."

Sarkisov and Hickey touched shoulders and the collision caused them both to hit the pavement. They quickly remounted and stopped the clock just two seconds ahead of a fast-charging Kellerman. Race officials ruled that Hickey deviated from her line in the two-up sprint and caused the crash, with Sarkisov taking the victory and her rival relegated to third. They escaped serious injuries.

Among the trio, Kellerman comes in with a three-race podium streak riding for Steve Tilford Foundation Racing, including a second place to Caroline Mani and a win at C1 races in Colorado at Boulder Cup. On the second day at Boulder Cup, she outsprinted Hickey for the victory. In her last match-up against Katherine Sarkisov, the two riders finished in the top 10 at Pan-American Championships but took no medals.

Kellerman has two stars-and-stripes jerseys in cross-country mountain biking, one collegiate title with Colorado Mesa University from two years ago and one in the U23 women's category this summer in Roanoke, Virginia. Cyclocross Nationals was the only 'cross race in which Kellerman competed last year, and that caught the eye of Raylyn Nuss, a two-time Pan-Am cyclocross champion who manages the Steve Tilford Foundation Racing team.

"Bringing Makena onto STF Racing is exciting because she represents the future of where our sport is headed. She’s already a standout in mountain biking as the current U23 national champion, and that crossover strength is exactly what cyclocross needs as it grows," Nuss told Cyclingnews.

"We’re committed to supporting athletes who can push the sport forward, and with cyclocross being championed to become a Winter Olympic sport in 2030, that mission feels more important than ever."

Kellerman focused on mountain bike competitions the past three years, competing in U23 races on the World Cup circuit the last two seasons. This year she scored her first top 10s in World Cup competitions, earning three in cross-country races and four in short track races, including sixth at Nové Město in the spring.

"2025 was a super special year for me, I think overall this year European racing finally clicked for me and I was able to enjoy the process and truly be excited to race. I feel like this year was the year I also started believing in myself instead of putting a limit on my abilities," the California native said.

"This team, Steve Tilford Foundation Racing, has helped me a lot this year with having the equipment and support to race at the front of these CX races. Being around a CX veteran like Raylyn has also been so amazing with talking about tactics, race craft and overall just cycling advice. It is so fun to also be a part of an all women's team too. I hope this inspires the future of young girls to know there are teams out there made just for them."

She's a senior at Colorado Mesa University so will line up alongside collegiate teammate Hickey for the College Women Varsity contest two days before the U23 race. Katherine Sarkisov will be part of the Collegiate Club field representing University of Maryland-College Park.

Since the tangled tale from CX Nationals last year, all three riders have continued momentum with career highlights, Sarkisov earning an unexpected bronze medal in the elite women's road race at USPro Road Nationals, on the podium beside winner Kristen Faulkner and runner-up Lauren Stephens. Hickey won the stars-and-stripes jersey in the women's U23 Criterium Championship.

Who is she watching in the U23 contest on Saturday? "I'd say Mia Aseltine and Kaya Musgrave will be up there for the U23 race. They both are coming off a mini Europe campaign and will be super strong."

Cyclocross fans can catch the U23 action as well as two days of racing on FloBikes for the 2025 USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships presented by The Meteor. Saturday's live streaming features Junior Women 17-18, which starts at 1:45 p.m. CDT, followed by races for the U23 Women and U23 Men. Sunday's programming includes the Junior Men 17-18 at 1:30 p.m. CDT, followed by the Elite Women and then the Elite Men.

A subscription is required for FloBikes, which offers a month-to-month plan for $29.99, or a yearly plan billed at $12.49 each month. Updates for all races at CX Nationals will be provided on USA Cycling's social media as well as a link to live timing.

Last year at the Tour of Bright two 19-year-old riders, Jack Ward and Talia Appleton, set heads turning when they charged up Tawonga Gap on the opening stage to claim victory. Now a year later both are heading into the new season with development team contracts, Ward with Lidl-Trek Future and Talia Appleton with the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team while the overall winner in 2024, Alli Anderson, is also joining Appleton at the Australian squad.

This three-stage race in the high country of Victoria is one where opportunity knocks. For a start there is testing terrain across the event with two summit finishes and a time trial. Then there is also the unique combination of domestic riders eager to prove they have what it takes against those that have already sealed their pathway with development team contracts and also the sprinkling of professionals that line up while back in Australia from Europe.

This year the list of top-tier riders at the Tour of Bright included Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ), Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL), Kell O'Brien (Jayco AlUla) and Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla), who knows all too well what a big boost a young rider can get from riding alongside established professionals after his effort up Willunga alongside Richie Porte at the Santos Festival of Cycling turbo charged his career.

Given the trajectory of the riders who excelled at last year's Tour of Bright, we've decided to highlight some of the standout performances that unfolded on Saturday and Sunday from among those who are still pushing toward the dream of an international cycling career.

Tawonga Gap tearaways – stage 1

Will Cooper (St George) was the big surprise of the day, with the 21-year-old himself confessing that he "wasn't expecting that" when he continued to push on from the break even as all his rivals fell away as the climb of Tawonga Gap progressed. He looked rock solid right to the end, showing no signs of fatigue or letting up as neared the top, remaining remarkably composed as he claimed the first Men's A victory of the tour.

It was a ride that put him in the leader's jersey with a 1:51 gap to defending champion Plapp and set him up to take second overall at the end of the race. Cooper, however, wasn't the only rider in the men's field to make an impression with Oliver Ward (Team Brennan) being the last to fall away from Cooper's wheel. Despite clearly having pushed it to hang on, the 17-year-old kept his composure, only allowing teammate Tristan Saunders to pass. That meant he secured third on the stage and held off the charge of Plapp, who couldn't quite, despite a scorching pace, close down the big gap the break had pulled out before the climb.

There was also another 17-year-old who couldn't be missed on Tawonga and that was Neve Parslow (ARA Skip Capital). While last year's revelation, Appleton, may have ridden the rest of the field off her wheel with an all out effort from the bottom it was a remarkable performance on the climb by Parslow, also a strong rider on the track. She matched the pace of seasoned WorldTour professional Chapman and Parslow, in fact, finished in second place as she crossed the line ahead of the UAE Team ADQ rider who would ultimately claim overall victory at the Tour of Bright. It was certainly a powerful reminder of the strength of the developing rider who in September claimed eighth in the junior road race at World Championships.

The test of time – stage 2

There was no questioning the strength of the field lining up for the race against the clock, not with the two Australian elite time trial champions at the start, Plapp and Chapman, both of whom also helped claim a rainbow jersey for the nation in the Mixed Team Trial at the Kigali World Championships. Though behind the predictable winners of the stage, others emerged with powerful performances.

Firstly, the best of the rest behind Chapman was the 19-year-old Kirsty Watts (Meridian Blue p/b 99 bikes) who reminded her rivals that there was a reason she was the U23 time trial champion for New Zealand. Watts came second, fending off a list of powerful competitors from Sophie Marr – who is also heading to the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team in 2026 with Anderson and Appleton – and Australian U23 champion Anderson who managed to clinch eighth in the U23 Road World Championships time trial.

Then in the Men's A time trial, even though there was no one who could match up to Plapp and O'Brien one rider came impressively close. That rider was the 19-year-old Julian Baudry (Team Brennan), who finished 36 seconds behind Plapp and just 7 back from O'Brien. The rider may have managed to sweep up the U23 men's road race title at the Australian championships at the start of this year, but now that the field knows how strong he is they are unlikely to let him go again. However, he's just shown that it is now the time trial where he could well earn his next set of U23 national stripes.

Buffalo brilliance – stage 3

There was a pivotal moment on the Mt Buffalo stage for Levi Hone (Team Brennan) and that was being in the right spot when the break of 17 went. It hadn't been the plan but it was an unexpected circumstance which the 19-year-old played to perfection. "It just happened to be that I was able to sneak away with a few guys, and everyone forgot about me, and I got pretty lucky, probably sitting on for a lot of the time there," Hone told Cyclingnews. "There were a lot of guys who were happy to work and get a handy buffer headed into Buffalo."

Although what certainly wasn't luck was that when the the strong and experienced form of Mark O'Brien (Trappist) broke apart the break with his pace on the climb, Hone was ready and able to jump in the wheel and hold it right through to the line. He knew that the sprint was just the opportunity he needed to take the place on the top step of the podium in Sunday's final stage of the Tour of Bright.

Further back, stage 1 winner Cooper may not have been able to hold the vicious pace set by Plapp so had to hand over the race GC lead to the now three-time winner but he played a clever hand, watching the rest of his GC rivals carefully, to make sure he at least walked away with the runner-up spot in Men's A.

Parslow also once again showed her climbing class, holding onto the back of the front group which just fell shy of catching the winner from the break, Katelyn Nicholson (Butterfields ZipTrak). That front bunch of Women's A included WorldTour professional Chapman and riders like Appleton and Emily Dixon (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto Generation) who have already secured their contacts with top development teams. The group was more than five minutes ahead of the rest of the field and Parslow's sixth on the stage, 12 seconds back from the victorious Nicholson, secured her fifth overall at the Tour of Bright.

While these were some of the standout performances of the weekend from up-and-coming riders, they certainly weren't the only ones so if you want to add your pick into the mix, jump into the comments below.

At 19 years of age, Ezra Caudell landed his first professional job to race as a professional cyclist, earning a two-year deal with Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. He's one of nine riders between the ages of 18 to 24 on the freshly minted team in 2026, all of them in solid positions for development under the tutelage of former WorldTour pro and team co-founder George Hincapie, and a trio of former USPro national champions as team directors - Alex Howes, Ty Magner and Joey Rosskopf.

It's a bold entry into full-time road racing for the youthful BMX and mountain bike swashbuckler. His early days growing up on the red clay of Georgia were spent on homemade BMX track in his backyard and riding on rocky, rooty mountain bike trails around Lake Altoona, north of Atlanta. By 2021 at age 15 he secured 14 MTB wins and five more top 10s across 20 USA Cycling sanctioned events, most of them in the southeastern US, and at his first US Pro Cup he finished fourth.

Caudell had a breakout season in 2024, placing fourth at Pan-American Mountain Bike Championships, winning his first US national title at US Marathon MTB championships in the 17-18 division and winning his first UCI MTB races, two in XCO and one in short track.

"Going pro was always my passion. I always wanted to make racing a bike my job. I feel when I'm riding my bike, it's not work, but if I can make it my job, I'm never going to work in my life," the gregarious US rider told Cyclingnews.

He will tower in the peloton at a height of 6'7" (2.0 metres) and his early goals are just as lofty, with aims to compete in Spring Classics and races with punchy climbs. The new year will mark his second year of living in Europe, as both his parents work for the US Department of Defense, and they will be based in Germany for several more years.

Caudell spoke to Cyclingnews just before the team gathered in early December at a team camp in Greenville, South Carolina about his different path to a pro road career and his goals for the inaugural season with the team.

Cyclingnews: A lot of people will be hearing about you for the first time with Modern Adventure Pro Cycling in the 2026 road season, but you've been cycling since you were very young. Tell us about growing up in Acworth, Georgia and how you got involved with cycling.

Ezra Caudell: When I was little, I played baseball and soccer, but around 7 years old, my parents realized I couldn’t stay focused and I hated the downtime. Just before my 8th birthday, my mom started looking for a running club or any sport that would keep me moving the entire time. She came across the USA BMX website, and we found out there was a BMX track about 7 miles from my house. I started riding a bike and dirt bike at 4 so they thought this might be a good fit. My parents took me over to Noonday Creek Park one Sunday to watch a race and I was hooked!

For my 8th birthday they got a stock Redline BMX bike and I started racing that next weekend. My sister, Emma, was 5 and wanted to do whatever I was doing, so she started racing also. We travelled all over the US in our camper racing nationals for the next three years.

CN: Did you really have a pump track in your backyard growing up?

EC: I did have a pump track in my backyard growing up! When I started racing BMX, a few of the dads told my parents it would be helpful to do some pump track practice. They told us there was one in Roswell, Georgia at Big Creek where we could practice. My parents would take us over and we would practice for hours.

Since it was a long drive to Big Creek, my dad came up with the idea of building one in our yard. We sat down and designed it, my dad ordered a couple of dump trucks of dirt, and we used my uncle’s bobcat to build it. To get speed on the first straight we would start in the corner of the back porch, and we built a ramp out of plywood to put over the porch steps.

We redesigned it a few times over the years, but I never stopped playing on it. In fact, we only bulldozed it down in 2024 just before we put our house up for sale to move to Germany.

CN: You moved into mountain bike racing as a teenager, so tell us about your development on dirt and earning spots with Team USA for international competitions.

EC: During 2023 and 2024, MTB was still my primary discipline. I raced NICA from 2018 to 2022 under the Blankets Creek Homeschool Team (in Georgia), but it was hard to fit in the proper training, so I stepped away.

I raced for Gravity Academy in 2023, and that year I was selected to race the Pan-American MTB Championships in Brazil. This was my first race in the USA Cycling National kit. Later that year, I did my first race block in Europe, and I knew then I wanted to be racing in Europe.

I raced for Gravity Collective in 2024 and hit every UCI and US Pro Cup race in the US as possible to earn UCI points in hopes of making it to Mountain Bike Worlds. I made the USA Worlds team in 2024 in Andorra and had a front row start. This was a huge moment.

CN: In 2024 you had some major off-road achievements, including your first national championship with US Marathon MTB in the 17-18 division. What were your three favorite cycling highlights from that year?

EC: Yes, 2024 was a really great year for me in mountain biking. I was selected for Pan-Ams for the second year in a row and placed fourth, just missing the podium. I did win my first national championship in the 17-18 category at the US Marathon MTB championships.

That year I traveled quite a bit and had lots of opportunities, but for my top 3 highlights of 2024, first on the list would be winning my first UCI races in Puerto Rico. I won two of the three XC races and the STXC race. Second would be taking second at the Mountain Bike cross-country US Nationals. That was a brutal race, and finishing just 10 seconds off Nico Konecky was a huge accomplishment for me.

The third highlight would be making it to Worlds in Andorra with a front row start. My family had just moved to Germany, so they were able to come watch too. I snapped my chain at the start and had to run the bike to the first tech zone to get a new chain. I was proud of myself for not giving up, though. I was dead last at that point, but I was able to finish on the leader’s lap. The finish wasn’t what I had hoped for, but it was an unforgettable experience.

CN: You began some road racing as a junior. Tell us about that and riding the first time at the Athens Twilight Criterium.

EC: In 2022, mountain biking was my focus, with Cadence Devo. During that time my parents bought me a road bike to train on and some of the coaches were big road riders. They worked with the kids that were interested in road by taking us to group rides with Free Flite Bike shop, Tuesday night crits in Marietta, 'Airport Ride' for the first time, WBL [Winter Bike League out of Athens - op ed].

Once I learned about Athens Twilight, I was super excited to race it. I was stoked to win the 15-16, but the main goal was to make it into the Cat. 1,2,3 race that night and just hang on as long as I could. I made it in, I didn’t last long, but it was chaos and I loved it!

CN: In 2025, you had a number of top 10s with Team California in Belgium and Spain, including a victory at Campeonato de Navarra road race. Tell us about being part of that programme, since you did not go through a typical road development team for racing.

EC: I was still committed to MTB in 2025, but I had hoped to get an opportunity to race on the road with USA Cycling when they came over to Europe and I was now living in Germany. That opportunity came in March of this year after Alex Pasqualina (USA Cycling Mountain Bike Director) put me in contact with Tanner Putt (USA Cycling Road Director). I was able to do a race block in Belgium with the USA Team and made some great connections. I continued to race MTB and did three World Cup races with USA Cycling.

I got connected with Team California and was invited to race in Spain over the summer. I had been feeling like I wanted to move to road, and the race block with Team California solidified that for me.

CN: What did you like about racing in Europe, and what was most challenging?

I have always preferred to challenge myself. So, an easier race that I place well in doesn’t feel as rewarding if I can’t see how it made me better or pushed me. What I have found racing in Europe for the past year and a half is the depth of talent is insane. There are no 'easier' races. At every race there are heavy hitters from different countries. It really gives you respect for the culture and how seriously they take the sport of cycling.

I feel like it’s the equivalent of how American football is in the US where it’s such a mainstream sport that the pool of talent is just massive. The other aspect I like but it is also a challenge is the fact that they race hard the entire time, and there is never a dull moment. There’s action the whole time and you have to be ready to react quickly.

When I called my parents after my first European race in 2024, they asked how it was. I said 'it was crazy'! It was a super aggressive race and it felt like mass chaos, but I could not wait to do it again!

CN: Modern Adventure Pro Cycling has three team directors, and each was asked to find US talent. Did you have a connection with Magner or Rosskopf in particular, since they are both from Georgia? How did you get an invitation to join the team?

EC: I didn’t have a close connection with Ty or Joey, but once I got into road, I knew who they were. They probably wouldn’t remember it, but I met them a few times at group rides in Georgia. I actually have a picture of me with Joey in his national championship jersey the first time I met him. I think I was like 15, so it feels like a full circle moment.

Joey was the first one to reach out to me back in May to tell me about this new team the Hincapies were starting. It was something that really interested me as well. They were looking for young American riders with a good personality and potential in the sport.

We kept chatting for a couple of months and one day I got a text saying George would be giving me a call with an offer as a rider for the next two years. It was a crazy experience going from a dedicated mountain biker at the beginning of the year who trained on the road primarily, having some good results on the road, and then getting a call from George Hincapie for this new American ProTeam. I am super grateful for the opportunity and looking forward to growing over the next two years.

CN: What are your goals for the first year with the team?

EC: My main goal for 2026 is getting experience in the pro peloton, learning my role in the team, and keeping myself healthy and fit throughout the year. I really want to focus on the road, and then there might be some gravel opportunities. I think maybe in the future, it'd be cool to try to do some mountain bike stuff as well.

CN: How would you describe your style of road riding, and what is the biggest positive you bring to the team right now, well ahead of any races?

EC: I would say I am more of a breakaway rider, to be honest. And Classic style is what I could see myself doing really well.

I guess you could say confidence. I've always loved the road because I feel like there's such little pressure. I've always felt so much pressure with mountain biking, I guess just because I've just been doing it for so long, and I feel like I almost have something to live up to. With road, I feel like I have nothing to prove, but I can just, you know, go out there and do really good and nobody knows me. So, I can really not worry about being stressed for getting a specific result. And I feel like that's a big advantage.

CN: If you could select two 'must-do' races for your calendar in the next two years, what would they be?

I would love to do Paris-Roubaix; that would be a huge one. I think that would be insane, a bucket list item for sure. And Strade Bianche. Those two are the huge ones in my mind.

CN: What would you like to accomplish as a U23 rider?

EC: My top three goals as a U23 rider would start with just learning as much as I can from the older riders and the staff who have the experience and knowledge to help teach me to be the best rider I can be.

Another big goal for me would be getting some time on a TT bike and seeing if I could do well there. I think my physiology is really suited towards a TT effort being a bigger rider. I’m interested to see how I would do since I’ve never touched a TT bike before.

And lastly, I think a big goal for me would be to show there’s more than one path to becoming a pro cyclist. I wasn’t on one of the big road development teams, but if you work hard and don’t give up, you can cross over and still have success.

CN: When you aren't on a bike, what do you enjoy in your free time?

EC: Back in Georgia, building trails with my friends was what I enjoyed most in my free time. We would spend hours in the woods just making short little loam trails or jumps and riding them. Since we moved to Germany, travelling is something I love to do in my spare time. We are always looking for a good castle, the best café, and this time of year the Christmas markets.

I also like to hike and see places from a different point of view than I would get while riding. My sister and I like baking too, even though I don’t think it counts to say that I’m the one baking, I’m just her helper.

This is the second installment of personal experiences provided by EuroCrossAcademy 15- and 16-year-old riders, men and women, who took part in the November session in the Netherlands. This 15-16 block took in races at VAM Berg and Spijkenisse, November 15-16, after initial training rides and educational sessions.

A total of 12 riders from 10 different states and nine different 'cross teams participated in the second week of skills development and racing - November 22 at Hilversum and November 23 at Venlo. A block of four Belgium races will also be held for 12 riders in the 17-18 age group in December.

Cyclingnews will feature diaries from several riders during and after each ECA block, with first-person accounts of their experiences and photos from the off-course and race landscapes in the Netherlands and Belgium. Follow the ECA on Instagram@eurocrossacademyig.

Ava White, a 15-year-old from Elkins, West Virginia, has been competing in cyclocross since she was nine years old, and Emmett Davis, 16, from Missoula, Montana also began with a few local races at a similar age. Though from opposite sides of the US, the two teens became teammates for EuroCrossAcademy the past two weeks, joining 10 other up-and-coming athletes for introductions to European everything - food, culture and cyclocross hills, mud and sand.

"Great block. Lots of strong growth both on and off the pitch," Geoff Proctor told Cyclingnews in a basic summary of a two-week block in Europe for his 15- and 16-year-old cyclocross student-athletes.

While the entire team competed in races in the Netherlands across two weekends, it was a mid-week training session in Lichtaart, Belgium where riders learned to blend physical skills and "positive mindsets" for the days ahead with challenging courses and high-level competition.

Proctor prioritises the "student" part of the equation, but his young pupils adapted quickly, with all six girls finishing 15th or better in Hilversum, and in a huge field of 85 riders, the boys finishing in 13th to 31st.

The final day of racing on November 23 was in Venlo which was a cold day for the eighth round of a regional Limburgcross Cup. The girls swept the top 5 in the elite women's category, with White going eighth. In the elite men's race, Luke Johnson finished third, with four others in the top 10 and Davis 11th.

Sven Hill and barriers

Before the final competitions on the trip, ECA participants spend a full day in Lichtaart, Belgium "skidding around in leaves and hopping over logs" as Davis described it, with special skills sessions led by former pros Tom De Kort and Ellen Van Loy.

"We first did starts, working on clipping in, getting off the line fast and sprinting for the yellow cones. Start after start, the thing I found most necessary was to have an open and growth mindset. It turns into a mental game real quick, and if you don't keep a positive mindset, you get wrapped into all the negatives," said Davis, who earned a bronze medal in the men's junior 15-16 category when Pan-American Championships were in Montana last year.

"It sounds silly but when you have multiple sets of coaches’ eyes on you and you're racing your friends, you don't want to mess up. As soon as you clear your head and focus on the task at hand, everything starts to click."

Both he and White enjoyed the tight single-track of the famous forest, but doing repetitions up Sven Hill was one of the more epic experiences of the sessions.

"I wasn't able to get the Sven Hill the first few times; I knew I had the strength and skills to do it, but I was missing the mental side," Davis said. "I was riding into the hill with no plan, just me, my bike and a super steep hill, which made me realize there was actually a huge mental aspect to it.

"Riding up a technical hill definitely requires a lot of power and technical skills but that's only part of the picture. Being able to forget the little mistakes and clear your mind before each rep is essential to success. It’s getting over that learning curve that sets you apart from the others, and it's your growth mindset that allows you to do that."

Davis said he learned to "reset and recenter" to conquer the climb. White said the wet conditions and barriers just across the top made it a double threat.

"The second part of the training was to climb a very steep, muddy hill (aka the infamous Sven Hill), sprint over the top and then get over barriers about 100 meters after the top. When it was my turn, I was so excited and eager to try to be the first girl to make it up the climb," she said.

"On my first attempt, I went straight up the climb and almost made it, except I couldn’t get my wheel over a hump and ended up running. When I got to the barriers, I tried to jump them, but I ended up crushing both at once.

"On my second try, I started the climb and could hear people cheering for me. Luckily, I made it with a little push.

"My final challenge was the barriers. As I sped up to jump, I felt my nerves kicking in. I pulled up on my bars and cleared both jumps. I was so happy because I have never cleared barriers before."

Dune field of sand

"There is no way to be fast in the sand if you don't stay focused and have a clear head," Davis assessed.

The group spent time with this obstacle as the final pair of Dutch races had large sand sections. Davis said he applied "the 2%" idea that was taught at one of the academy's evening sessions, a study that showed only 2% of a population pursues a more difficult path in the short term to benefit in the long term.

"In other words, by taking on challenges like doing reps up the Sven Hill, pushing the comfort by learning to hop the barriers, and ripping through the famous sand ruts over and over, we put into practice this idea of the 2%.

"You're braking, then pedaling, looking up, making sure your weight is centered correctly and so much more. It's a lot to think about, and as soon as you stop doing just one of those things, it's easy for everything to fall apart. It's lap after lap, fall after fall that teaches you and builds who you are."

White stepped up to Category 3 elite women's races this 'cross season, finding the podium four times, twice at Kings CX in Ohio. There is sand at US races, but this sand was different, what she called "a dune field".

"I was excited about all the training sessions, but I was especially nervous about the sand session. My heart sank at the word “sand” because I was so nervous about it," White said.

"We headed to an area that looked like a dune field. Once we got to the course, Tom coached us not to look at our front tire while riding through the circuit, but to look where we want to go. Ellen then gave me some advice about changing gears, which also helped me get through the sandy corners and turns more easily."

Whether it was smoother skills to clear obstacles like barriers or sand, or balance and focus with climbing, both White and Davis used the same word to describe what they had learned - confidence.

They'll bring it back to the US where they are expected to compete in mid-December at USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships presented by The Meteor in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Teenagers Abbygail Cole and Luke Johnson experienced their very first European cyclocross races earlier this week, as part of the 12-rider group for 15- and 16-year-olds with 2025 EuroCrossAcademy (ECA), a US-based student-athlete development programme. With the new territory came surprises in pre-race routines, language barrier, start grid placements and race positioning.

Both riders acclimatised quickly after starts deep in the fields, new territory for the accomplished juniors, with Cole scoring back-to-back victories on the weekend while Johnson earned second place on Saturday. However, racing the first day in deep mud at VAM Berg and the next on a slippery, technical course like Spijkenisse, near Rotterdam, were not straightforward rides to the podium.

Abby Cole, a 15-year-old from East Granby, Connecticut, who rides for Competitive Edge Racing with her twin sister Lilly, said she was surprised on Saturday by a fast, shoulder-bumping start, "which made me kind of panic". Johnson, a 16-year-old from Waukesha, Wisconsin, who rides for Finkraft Junior Cycling, said he had to adapt to aggressive racing where "everybody races for any position with all they can".

Throughout the various renditions of ECA since Geoff Proctor founded the development programme in 2003, young athletes have used the travel blocks, along with US-based camps, to gain cyclocross skills, experience different cultures and develop personally as a "whole person", as Proctor puts it, adding: "You want to refrain from judgment and evaluation and results, to enjoy the process, experience the joy and the surprise of watching an athlete grow and achieve."

Notable past participants who have worn the ECA kits in Europe include AJ August (Ineos Grenadiers), Danny Summerhill (L39ION of Los Angeles), former WorldTour pro Joe Dombrowski, reigning Pan-American elite cyclocross champions Lizzy Gunsalus and Andrew Strohmeyer.

The ECA 15-16 block continues for another week, with training rides, educational sessions and two final Dutch races - November 22 at Hilversum and November 23 at Venlo. Eleven of the riders represent 10 different states as well as nine different 'cross teams, with Lukas Young based out of Germany. A block of four Belgium races will also be held for 12 riders in the 17-18 age group in December.

Cyclingnews will feature diaries from several riders during and after each ECA block, with first-person accounts of their experiences and photos from the off-course and race landscapes in the Netherlands and Belgium. Follow the ECA on Instagram@eurocrossacademyig.

Welcome to the Netherlands

"This weekend I raced my first two European cyclocross races. As Americans coming to Europe, there were a lot of questions that came to our minds about racing. We came in with an open mind to learn on and off the course," Abby Cole wrote for her first entry in the ECA diary.

"I knew the racing would be different. I knew the girls would be more aggressive. In the U.S., almost all of our races are dry [this year], but the days leading up to VAM Berg were very wet."

Coming into her first racing overseas, the 15-year-old had won six races in 11 outings, including Category 2 / 3 victories at Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross and Northampton Cyclocross. Unlike most of the dry conditions across the New England events this year, thick mud and thick grass were menacing at the first Dutch race.

"The start procedures were very different as soon as all of the girls took off their warm-up pants and jackets the start official said five seconds. This was extremely different from U.S racing because they normally give you 15 seconds, and then any time within that 15 seconds.

"The girls started very fast and I was pushed out of the way by another rider, which made me kind of panic. I was able to move past girls on the cobblestone sectional, which we have never seen before.

"The mud was thin and slick, and running some sections were faster. I was able to get in the lead after the first lap and hold my lead to the finish. The podiums were right after where everyone was freezing, but the girl who got second spoke English. I don't know how to speak Dutch, so it was cool for them to speak our language."

For Wisconsin native Johnson, he was also surprised to be lined up in the last row of the start grid, not a common sight for a rider with all top 10s, including three wins, among his 10 starts in the US this season.

"I started the block by getting settled on the first day, and had my first skill session in the forest with Dutch Provincial Coach Bert Jan Hamer and Crelan-Corendan pro Manon Baker, which was an amazing introduction to European training. Then there was one day of recovery, and I geared up for the upcoming weekend of racing," he said about the start of the 15-16 block.

"For my first European race, I was one of the last to line up on the start grid, which is not an experience I am used to in the United States. Instantly, through the first few sections of the course, I was not expecting the Dutch riders to take the more muddy lines, so I was able to be more efficient and use faster lines.

"In the pre-ride, I found myself having to think much more broadly as the course was drastically wider and had many more line options than typically having one or very few lines back home. For example, there was a deep muddy section after the second pit, and riding it didn’t feel right. No line was efficient, and I planned with my teammates to run the whole section from the pit as we practiced in pre-ride. When the race came around, I changed my approach in the pit as there was still plenty of grass to ride to the first corner and then ran the whole section from there.

"This course was a power-heavy course, which I found helpful to work my way through the field. I moved up through the race to where I was chasing down the leader for the last laps and finishing on the podium in second."

Second race day

"Our second race was in Spijkenisse, at a permanent cyclocross course for a club. The club and race organizers were shocked to see Americans signed up for their regional Dutch-series race. After our pre-ride to the local club called PRC Delta, they asked to take a photo with all their young riders and seemed to view us as celebrities," Abby Cole said.

"I knew I would have a poor start position, and moving up was going to be very important due to an off-camber section, and another in the woods that followed not far after the start."

Abby Cole went on to win her second race for ECA. The six-rider men's event did not have a representative on the podium, but 16-year-old Lukas Young finished fifth. Johnson noted how different the course was from the one on Saturday.

"On Sunday, I raced Spijkenisse, which was a drastically different race dynamic from the variation between the two courses. The course was much more tight in width and had many smaller features such as off cambers, short stairs, carousels and short hills.

"The start went straight into a technical section, which turned into a big bottleneck, making it especially hard to move up. I worked with my teammates to work our way up through the field.

"There were five barriers per lap, and a few laps into the race, I made a mistake hopping the first set. The ground was not super smooth and at race pace I was not quite as confident as I would usually be, so for the rest of the race I ran the barriers. As a result, it was as fast or a little faster compared to bunny hopping. All of these little changes during the race added up to help my performance."

Life lessons

"For these two races we had to leave early, so prepping the night before was necessary in order to not be rushed in the morning. Prior to coming to Europe, I had a very specific pre- and post-race routine, but since being in Europe, I have realized that I have to be more independent and not rely on my parents because they are not there. In order to be ready on race day, I have to prepare my pre-race meal and make sure I have all of my ECA clothes," Abby Cole admitted.

"This trip has been very informative and will help me come prepared as I reach the 17-18 UCI field. I am excited to apply what I have learned on and off the bike and apply it to my racing."

Johnson said that while the impressions of how the course conditions were so vastly different, the competitiveness of the fields was similar.

"In the US, the racing is not as aggressive as in Europe. In the US, if I am racing for 15th, nobody would be very aggressive fighting for the position, whereas in Europe, everybody races for any position with all they can. This is another part of racing I have had to adapt to and change my perspective to expecting competition from each racer," he recalled.

"With my first weekend of racing in the Netherlands behind me, I am looking forward to the rest of our week together. Wednesday, we train in the Lichtaart forest (with hopes of catching a glimpse of some of the top Belgian pros), recovering, and applying the experience I gained to this upcoming weekend racing in Hilversum and Venlo."

Belgian super talent Jarno Widar has confirmed part of his schedule for 2026, ahead of his step up to the WorldTour with Lotto Intermarché, with a Grand Tour debut and two Monument appearances on his provisional plan.

After another very impressive campaign on Lotto's development team in 2025, Widar was named the 'Promising Rider of the Year' for a second season running at the Kristallen Fiets end-of-year cycling awards in Belgium, organised by daily newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.

Although the messy merger between Lotto and Intermarché hasn't yet been finalised, Widar will certainly be a part of their plan, with the ambitious plan for his first season confirming his standing among the team's stars.

"Normally, I'll be riding the Strade Bianche, La Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the spring," Widar told HLN.

"Maybe the Amstel Gold Race too, but that depends on how I finish the Tour of the Basque Country. After that, the Vuelta a España will be my first Grand Tour, and I'll close the season with the Tour of Lombardy.

"I'm really looking forward to it—we can only dream and do our best. It's going to be a journey of discovery, isn't it? I'm very curious about that."

Widar, 20, has been one of the dominant forces in the under-23 peloton the past two years, netting GC wins at the Giro d'Italia Next Gen, Ronde de l'Isard and Giro Ciclistico della Valle d'Aosta, along with several stages at each event.

He's also impressed in one-day races, winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège U23, Flèche Ardennaise and the European Championships U23 road race this past season. Widar suffered cramps at the World Championships in Rwanda and missed out on a big goal there, with fellow top up-and-coming talent Lorenzo Finn taking victory for Italy.

Widar also narrowly missed out on the overall title at the prestigious Tour de l'Avenir, behind the hugely promising young French racer Paul Seixas, who has already established himself in the WorldTour with Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale. However, the Belgian did win two stages after close-fought battles with the Frenchman.

His highlight for 2025? "The European Championship, definitely, but the two stage wins at the Tour de l'Avenir are really close," he said.

"The battles I fought there with Paul Seixas... I've rewatched that footage several times because I find it so beautiful.

"I'm especially pleased that I've made a huge step forward in terms of values. And thankfully, the results followed. I'm very happy with that. The most important thing for me is that I've seen progress within myself."

Widar was cautious to put excessive pressure on his own shoulders for his first WorldTour season, highlighting how just making it into the professional system was what he was dreaming of. He will have big targets, nevertheless, and as one of the top climbing prospects in the world, Lotto-Intermarché will be desperate to unlock his full potential.

"It's a dream come true. For me, it doesn't really matter what I achieve anymore, because when I was a little boy cycling around here, it was already a dream in itself to ride among the pros," said Widar to HLN.

"I'm going to experience that now. I've already achieved something that will make me very happy . I'm proud of that. Although, of course, I do have new dreams. [But] I've learned to just keep quiet and set goals only in my head and with the team. And then work towards them calmly."

Iván Romeo arrived at last summer's Tour de France as the youngest rider in the bunch. Not only was the Spaniard making his debut at cycling's premier stage race, but he was doing so in the national champion's jersey too – going under the radar was never going to be an option.

Yet, as the 22-year-old explains in a sit-down interview with Cyclingnews while in Singapore for the Tour de France Criterium, pressure isn't a problem for the man from Valladolid.

His body language exudes a seasoned pro, not one who made his Grand Tour debut just months earlier, but don't mistake confidence for cockiness. Romeo's development process has been carefully managed to ensure the pitfalls of modern cycling don't hamper his potential.

After catching Movistar's attention in 2021 at MMR Academy, he spent a year under the tutelage of Axel Merckx at Hagens Berman Axeon development squad before officially joining Movistar in 2023. An under-23 World Championships time trial title in Zurich last year was a promising sign, but it's Romeo's 2025 exploits at elite level that prove his development plan worked.

Just three racedays into this season and Romeo claimed his first pro win, on stage 3 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, as he attacked with 17km remaining and held off a chasing bunch that included the likes of João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers).

"Getting my first pro win was my main goal. I needed that. I needed to win, and I got it on the third day of competition," Romeo revealed.

"It was actually very important to get that win quite early as it just gave me more confidence to say 'OK, you were right, you can do it.'"

The youngster expected himself to deliver in 2025, but perhaps not in the manner that he ultimately did. Despite being the second youngest rider on Movistar's roster – which is the third-oldest in the WorldTour at an average of 27.5 years – Romeo's early season exploits rapidly progressed him up the pecking order.

A fourth place in GC at the UAE Tour followed his early-season victory, before WorldTour-level success arrived in the shape of a solo stage win at the Critérium du Dauphiné after attacking from the day's break.

Victory at the Dauphiné was big for Romeo, but not as sweet as success at the Spanish National Championships later in June.

"For sure, Dauphiné was a big win, but the most special one for me was nationals. Wearing the national champion's jersey is a dream of everyone, and in Spain, even more so, because we have a crazy [cycling] fan base."

It was a race Movistar clearly backed Romeo to deliver in, something he thrives off.

"[Nationals] was a really big goal, so when you deliver having all that responsibility, it's even better. I like pressure, I like to race that way. It makes you feel better when you accomplish the goal," he added.

The full force of Le Tour

The Tour de France was tentatively scheduled for the youngster at the start of 2025, but his results in the early season made it a certainty, especially with la Rojigualda on his back.

At 21 years and 323 days, Romeo was the youngest rider on the start line in Lille and felt the full effects of the Tour's circus-like nature in the opening week.

"They tell you it'll be hard, but it's difficult to expect how hard it is, not just physically, but mentally too.

"For a guy like me who's super competitive, to race having the next goal in five days [time], for example, a breakaway opportunity, is really difficult. You still have to wake up every morning, weigh your food, and ride 180km; it's tough."

Romeo was in awe of the level of competition at the Tour, admitting it felt "insane" and "like a different sport," alongside questioning whether he even belonged in the Grand Tour peloton.

As the stages ticked by, though, Movistar's young talent settled into the race, ultimately experiencing the full force of Le Tour.

From a bad bout of cramp on stage 18 to the Col de la Loze that nearly forced him to abandon, to a chance at a stage win, literally, sliding away from him as he crashed on a wet corner during the penultimate stage.

"I was cramping on the descent of the Col du Glandon, and we had 110km to go. I was with Iván García Cortina in the group, and if it wasn't for him, I would probably have gone home.

"This is the rollercoaster that you go through. I was almost winning the stage in the breakaway when I crashed, so that tells you how the Tour is. You can never give up. Until Paris, it is still alive."

Despite the disappointment, Romeo sees the value in these experiences and how they'll help him during three-week races in the years to come.

"It was my first Grand Tour, and now I know how it is. Whatever I do now is going to be easier," he added.

One-week racer, TT specialist, or even GC contender?

A Grand Tour looks set to remain on the young Spaniard's agenda for 2026, alongside an amalgamation of Classics and one-week stage races where he can use his strengths to target GC. Given his potentially well-rounded calendar, what type of rider does it make Romeo as he enters his fourth WorldTour season?

"I'm young, so it's difficult to say what type of rider I am. This year has helped me to know what I like more. I really enjoyed [targeting] GC at one-week races at the UAE Tour and Valenciana, so I want to try that again this year in some races that suit me.

"Races with time trials and not very steep climbs, I think I can do well there," Romeo continued.

His strong time trialling ability could well provide him with an edge in stage races, but despite storming to victory in Zurich last year, he still awaits his first pro victory against the clock. The Spanish National Championships TT is one race in particular that he's currently "missing" from his palmarès and a target in 2026.

As for returning to the Tour de France, it's naturally a race that is on the 22-year-old's radar, but his attitude towards the race is remarkably holistic for someone of his age and experience.

"The biggest goal would be to win a stage at the Tour, but I don't think I have to put that as my main goal. The Tour is so crazy that you can get very frustrated if you don't win there, but maybe [the reason for not winning] is not on you," Romeo reflected.

Handling national pressure

This clear, composed thinking is something the youngster has exuded throughout our chat, and one he carries with him despite the undeniable national pressure. This 'cool customer' personality stems in part from the group around him.

His girlfriend, Cat Ferguson, is no stranger to big expectations from a young age, having scooped up junior rainbow jersey titles in 2024 and now experiencing similar success with Movistar in the Women's WorldTour.

Meanwhile, his brother, Sergio, is two years younger than him and currently riding for Equipo Kern Pharma's development side, having also started with MMR Academy. Romeo's parents spent July following him around the Tour de France in a campervan, too.

It all adds up to making the life of a WorldTour cyclist that bit easier to come to terms with for Romeo.

"It's special [their support] and it's helped me a lot this year. It just makes life a lot easier in every way. I always say that what I must appreciate about my life is that I have a really good group around me.

"Some days you don't want to ride a bike, but you have no excuse. So, [this group] makes everything easier," the youngster admitted.

The strong support network is another aspect of Romeo's development that has enabled him to seemingly relish and enjoy all that the career of a professional cyclist entails, even when it's bitterly cold, and you need to go out for a training ride.

Of course, he's not alone when it comes to hot prospects hoping to deliver Spain glory at cycling's premier events. Juan Ayuso may look the most likely of Spain's current crop to claim a Grand Tour title – and end a dry spell stretching back to Alberto Contador's 2015 Giro win – but could Romeo prove to be the next Alejandro Valverde figure and claim more rainbow jersey success at elite level?

Whichever category of rider and race Romeo falls into, his careful development and composed mentality stand him in good stead to cut through the noise and deliver more success for the passionate, if expectant, Spanish fan base.

Babette van der Wolf grew up surrounded by bicycles. Her father, Michael van der Wolf, competed in the pro peloton for nine seasons, riding for three different second-tier teams between 1996-2000. She attributes her love for the sport to her upbringing in the Netherlands with a role model like her father, inspiration from her older sister, and an affinity for managing the ever-present wind in the Netherlands – "The wind, the fight, the chaos, I love it all".

While still a junior, Van der Wolf found success on the track, winning a European Championship on the track and finishing with a bronze medal in the Madison (with Nienke Veenhoven) at the UCI Junior Track Worlds in Israel.

In 2023 she moved from a club road team to the Continental level with Lifeplus-Wahoo as a first-year U23 rider. She got a spot on their Tour de France Femmes squad in 2023 and scored nine top 10s the next season, taking third at Antwerp Port Epic Ladies.

This past season, still just 21, she climbed again and landed at EF Education-Oatly with a three-year contract, the team expected to be WorldTour level in 2026. She finished fifth on stages at both Tour of Britain Women and Giro d'Italia Women, finished second at Bambrugge-Erpe-Mere one-day race and took part in the UCI Gravel World Championships for the home Dutch team.

"Cycling isn’t just about today. It’s your life," she told Cyclingnews.

She's carving a career path with multiple disciplines, but also has an eye on plan B for her future. Quick with a smile, the young Dutch rider shared philosophical points of view on many topics with Cyclingnews. At just 21, she has spent 15 of those on a bicycle, and she's using that youthful experience to "become a strong professional rider".

Cyclingnews: Tell us a little about your family and how your father inspired you and your sister to ride bikes.

Babette van der Wolf: My father was a professional cyclist for many years, winning numerous races and podiums. When my sister was born, he retired to be there for her, though he still raced occasionally in amateur and derny events. Seeing my sister start cycling on her bright pink bike, I wanted one too, and a little jealousy sparked my own passion.

Both my father and sister have always been guiding examples. My sister taught me how high the highs can be, but also how deep the lows, allowing me to learn from her experiences. My father showed me from a young age how to race and win, and I still follow his vision today, deeply grateful for it. My parents’ unwavering support, bringing me to every race and encouraging me even when things went wrong this helped shape my dream.

As I grew older, I raced for a club in Rotterdam and continued watching my father compete. He would guide me through what he would do, and though I was often too nervous to film his finishes and never actually got him on camera, the excitement of those moments made me certain I wouldn’t want to enter cycling any other way.

CN: You have said that you like riding in the wind, which you face a lot in the Netherlands. How it that helped you in the peloton?

BVDW: Yes, I was born in Rotterdam, but I grew up on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee. One thing this island is known for is the wind. From a young age, my dad taught me how to ride in an echelon. And once you understand the rhythm and vision behind it, you start to love it. The wind, the fight, the chaos, I love it all.

It has definitely taught me some lessons – if you’re not in the right position, you won’t be at the front. But it also shows how strong you can be, because you have to ride in the echelon; otherwise, you’ll get dropped.

CN: Tell us about your interests across many disciplines, not just road cycling.

BVDW: When I was young, I started with road and track cycling. Track shaped me into the rider I am today. I also tried cyclocross, super fun but my dad warned me not to do too much, which I’m thankful for.

I focused on track until racing became harder, and last year I decided to focus on road, with some gravel on the side. Living in Switzerland makes that a dream. I’ll never completely stop track, because it has my heart, but when I do it, I want to enjoy it and have fun without too many proving others but myself.

CN: When did you realise the bike could open your world for a career?

BVDW: I think that ever since I was a junior, I’ve always wanted to become a professional. I still remember having to write down my dream on paper, and I wrote: "I want to become a really good pro rider." When I turned U23 and started riding for Wahoo, I was grateful to have the opportunity to race all the big races. However, it also felt like a deep dive into the unknown. That experience, though, helped shape me. Both as a rider and as a person, giving me a lot of experience early on. My first real moment of realization came during my second year as a U23.

CN: The first four seasons you rode with smaller teams, but you earned a podium your first year at Watersley Ladies Challenge. And the next year you had a lot of results. Tell us what event was most special in those years to give you a contract to race for bigger competitions?

BVDW: When I was a junior, the club team I rode for taught me a lot about the [career] road I wanted to take. I had a few setbacks and sometimes faced reality a bit too harshly, but thanks to the right circle I built around me, I kept going and kept believing. I think the biggest lesson I learned was that cycling isn’t just about today. It’s your life.

I became European Champion on the track, finished third at Worlds, and raced at the World Championships in Australia as a junior. After becoming European Champion, I was offered a contract by Lifeplus-Wahoo. I was really grateful for their trust and belief in me.

I got to learn a lot from Malgorzata Jasinska, who was our DS at the time. She taught me how to race the big races, how to handle them mentally and physically, and what it truly means to be a good teammate. She helped me believe in myself when I couldn’t. Most of the time, I raced WorldTour events, so I really wanted to prove myself at the smaller races too, to show both myself and the team what I was capable of. After Antwerp Epic, I got the chance to talk with EF. They shared the same vision as me and believed in the rider I am. And still, they have the same development goals that I strive for.

CN: You landed at EF Education-Oatly for 2025, with security for two more years. Tell us about that step to a ProTeam.

BVDW: I signed a three-year contract with the team, my first real pro deal. Those three years are meant for growth, learning, and development, and I’m truly grateful for the trust the team has in me.

At first, I was a bit nervous to join such a big team with riders I used to look up to, but I embraced it. Even as one of the youngest, I have a dream and a vision. Every race or training day felt like a learning day, and I love getting feedback from DSs, coaches, and teammates. Everyone adds something unique, and that’s what makes this team so special.

Looking back, I’m especially thankful for riders like Alison Jackson and Sarah Roy, who taught me new ways of racing, helped me grow, and showed what true teamwork means.

CN: What made you want to race some gravel? You said your first gravel race at Sea Otter Girona was completed on a road bike with gravel tyres. Was that fun or a challenge?

BVDW: Yes, the Sea Otter race was super spontaneous and looking back, I was probably a bit crazy to do such a tough gravel race with my best friend in the feed zone and hoping my road bike would survive! But what mattered most was that I had so much fun, and even now I still laugh when I think about it.

That race made me want to do more gravel events. It’s something different from road racing, yet just as hard. I live in Switzerland, and riding here on my road bike is simply beautiful; sometimes I completely lose track of time. For me, it’s healthy to combine road and gravel. It keeps me mentally fresh and makes me a stronger, more technical rider on the road.

CN: You finished top 45 at the UCI Gravel World Championships in south Limburg. How did you enjoy the day on the bike?

BVDW: It was a special day. My first Gravel Worlds, and in the Netherlands, with my family cheering on the sidelines. From the first lap it was full gas, but unfortunately I started to feel more and more empty each lap and had to let the group go. I knew my form was a bit of a question mark, but at the end of the day I came for the experience and to have fun and I did.

I’m really thankful to the team for being so supportive of gravel racing, and for giving me an absolute beast of a bike, the Cannondale gravel bike.

CN: Looking back at your education process on and off the bike, what stands out to you?

BVDW: When I was in high school, I sometimes found it difficult to combine school and cycling. My sister was always a great example for me. She’s super smart, a bit of a perfectionist, and she always told me: "School first, cycling second." My sister’s advice was to make my dream happen, with a plan B on the side.

Because only when you don’t have nightmares, you don’t need a plan B to fulfill a dream. But this isn’t the reality... That sentence has always stayed with me. Still, school was a challenge. I changed schools a few times and tried to fit everything into my schedule.

After my first year as a U23, I decided to start studying Medical Science and I’m still doing it today. Not because I have to, but because it’s good to keep a balance with 'normal life' and to keep following my sister's advice.

CN: What is your 'dream' win on the road while you are still a U23 rider?

BVDW: To be honest, I have many dreams. But just like I’ve done before, my main dream remains – to become a strong professional rider. This isn’t about a single day, it’s a journey that spans years.

Of course, I also dream of winning races. As a U23 rider, I'd love to win one of the bigger races, but honestly, any victory would be amazing. One of my goals for next season is to take a win in one of the smaller races, because at the end of the day, a win is a win.

Lizzy Gunsalus (Marian University) extended her cyclocross winning streak to four consecutive UCI races with double wins at Major Taylor Cross Cup this past weekend on her team's home turf in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tofik Beshir (CXD) earned two podiums in the men's events, including his first UCI victory at the elite level.

At just 18 years of age and a native of Ethiopia, Beshir has been a resident in the US for the past decade, but only added cyclocross to his racing calendar three seasons ago. On the road, he raced for Kelly Benefit Strategies but has matured in cyclocross, taking a spot on the podium eight times last season as a junior. Competing in all eight elite men's races of the US Cyclocross Series this season, he finished sixth overall and was the youngest rider in the elite men's top 10.

On the opening day at Major Taylor Cross Cup, Beshir finished second to Brody McDonald. On Sunday, Beshir moved to the top step of the podium with a sprint finish that left Briton Tom Scott in second place and McDonald in third.

Gunsalus outdueled veteran Caroline Mani (Velo Mafia) both days on the Indy Cycloplex course. The 22-year-old came into the Indianapolis weekend with a pair of wins from Kings CX in Ohio, including a victory in her season debut in the C1 contest.

"I’ve been attending Marian University for the past 5 years and to finally win the home UCI race on campus in Marian colors is such an incredible honor," Gunsalus said in a post on Instagram.

Gunsalus won the U23 women's title at the US Cyclocross Championships two years ago and last year as a 21-year-old was fifth in the elite women's contest. A native of Massachusetts, who races on the road for CCB p/b Levine Law Group, Gunsalus goes back to her New England roots next to race Northampton Cyclocross on November 1-2, the event celebrating a 34th edition.

Unbound Gravel lottery opens November 1

Want to race Unbound Gravel in 2026? The lottery process opens this Saturday, November 1, for all of the five distances - XL, 200, 100, 50, or 25 miles - beginning at 12:00 CDT. Entries close on November 15 at 11:59 CST. Lottery winners in the random selection process, managed by event owners Life Time, will be notified by email on November 21.

2026 marks the 20th anniversary of Unbound Gravel, with the start of the 350-mile XL event scheduled for 3:00 local time on May 30, and the four other distances sending riders on the course between 5:50 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. May 31. All events begin on Commercial Street in downtown Emporia, Kansas.

There are several other ways to gain entry into Unbound Gravel, including raising money for Life Time Foundation or Chris Klug Foundation in a Ride for Charity programme, taking part in an official four-day training camp (April 9-12, 2026), or competing at Sea Otter Classic Gravel (April 16-17, 2026), which will provide 50 'coins' for qualification into Unbound. Other qualification events and volunteer opportunities provide entries for Unbound in 2027.

Pan-Am Cyclocross Championships remain at originally-planned venue in Washington DC

The ongoing US government shutdown this fall created a scare for organisers of the upcoming cyclocross races to be held November 8-9 at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, DC. Organisers of the 2025 UCI Pan-American Cyclocross Championships and UCI Category 2 DCCX events confirmed just days ago that an agreement was reached for the weekend of races to proceed as planned.

"The Armed Forces Retirement Home, where the race takes place, is on U.S. Federal Government property and is subject to the ongoing government shutdown. This meant our primary contacts for the race venue were no longer allowed to work, leaving us unsure whether the race could take place on the premises," owner of CXHAIRS Media Bill Schieken - which operates both events alongside CXD Trek Bikes and DCMTB - said in a formal announcement on Saturday.

"Thankfully, last week, after meeting with the remaining administrators at the venue, we reached an agreement for PanAms and DCCX to proceed as planned."

Schieken explained that because federal government representatives could not be reached for several weeks, his team went through a permitting process for two new locations. With three weeks to go, the original location at the Armed Forces Retirement Home was reconfirmed. The DCCX event had first been held at that venue in 2008.

The PanAms for cyclocross make their debut in Washington, DC, this year on a two-year contract. New for 2025 will be the hosting of a UCI Team Relay Continental Championship event, a recent addition to the Continental programme but first launched at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in 2023.

Registration for events remains open through November 5.

Rising Swiss talent Jan Christen is one of only four riders with the luxury of being contracted on UAE Team Emirates-XRG, cycling's top team, until 2030, alongside two Spanish teenagers – Pablo Torres and Adrià Pericas – and world champion Tadej Pogačar.

Despite this certain future, though, Christen knows he has serious improvements to make if he's to extract his full potential and not fall down the pecking order among UAE's near-overflow of stars that also includes Isaac del Toro and João Almeida.

Christen was the recipient of a very public dressing down by one of his teammates, Mikkel Bjerg, earlier this season, after his instinctive attacking style left the Dane criticising him on Danish TV2 at the Tour de Suisse.

"No, I was very surprised that he attacked, but good to see he had good legs," said Bjerg to TV2 when asked if he was expecting Christen's move on stage 2 that ultimately came to nothing.

"[It's] a bit sad he doesn't know how to help us, but that's how it is."

If he's to become a key cog during his long stint on UAE, which the team will be hoping for after extending the 21-year-old's contract to 2030, Christen knows very well that he'll sometimes have to rein it in. Though his natural propensity to attack when he feels the moment is right could prove hard to overcome.

"It's not easy, I like to race with the instinct and try something, not waiting too much for the final," he told Cyclingnews before stage 4 of the Tour of Guangxi.

"But I've started to feel like the guys know how strong I am, so they don't let me go anymore. I also need to learn a bit more from the other guys and listen, and for sure I can make next year a lot of victories."

UAE have been the site of some well-known internal battles in recent years amid their employment of many of the top riders and top up-and-coming riders in the world, such as Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro at this year's Giro, or Ayuso and Almeida at last year's Tour, when the latter had to shout at the former to come take a pull up the Col du Galibier.

Christen doesn't seem to be making his sometimes rash moves purely out of rivalry with those competing for the same race calendar, but does genuinely appear to be at the mercy of his own internal need to light things up when an opportunity presents itself.

It's got him two wins so far in 2025, alongside some top results like second at the Clásica San Sebastián and a strong week with five top-10 finishes at the Tour of Poland. He obviously wants more, but has had several run-ins with illness, alongside breaking his collarbone, which have stunted his progress during only his second year as a WorldTour rider.

"It was a nice year and we've had a lot of victories, which has been amazing," he said.

"For me, I had a bit of bad luck, some crashes, but also broke my collarbone and had some sickness, but in the end I also won two races and was part of many victories with the team, so I'm already looking forward to the next year.

"I'm happy how I could improve also this year and looking forward to making another step in the winter and then be even more successful."

Fighting for leadership at UAE

He also said that the internal competition at UAE has helped keep him sharp and focused, aware that being able to show the Emirati squad you are up for the task ahead is just as important to afford leadership as actually doing it on the road is. After all, when you've won just shy of 100 races in a calendar year with 20 different riders, being picked as the guy to go for the win requires quite some convincing.

"I think the competition is good because you push each other, that's the key of our team," said Christen.

"We always have so many guys on the start line who can win the race, and you need to do all you can in the preparation so that the team knows and sees you have the best level. I think like this, we push each other a lot and get stronger to be at the race in the best shape possible."

Even with his long-term future secured, Christen isn't just going to use that to sit back – it's victories that he wants. In China, Jhonatan Narváez is UAE's best-placed rider on GC heading into the queen stage 5 on Saturday to NongLa, but Christen didn't rule out several moves being made by the top-ranked team, with the objective simply being a UAE win, not necessarily a Narváez win.

"It's relaxing to be signed until 2030 in one way, but I also want to win races; however, it does give me a lot of confidence that the team has in me and the future with the team," Christen told Cyclingnews.

"I don't know exactly how much shape is. I've raced a lot the last eight weeks, but with Jonny, we have the big favourite here, and also Felix [Großschartner] and I are in good condition. In the end, it's about playing our cards right and making sure one of us wins."

For 2026, Christen won't know his exact goals until UAE head to training camp and confirm them in December or January, but he wants the one-day and one-week racing arenas to be his key objective, alongside hopefully making his Grand Tour debut.

"We will see, I'm liking a lot of the one-day races like Flèche, Amstel and San Sebastian," he said, when asked about goals for next season. "For sure, it would be nice to do my first Grand Tour and set even another level for the upcoming year, but my main focus will be for sure on the one-week stage races and one-day races."

Peter Øxenberg may likely have first made his name in the cycling world by emulating an illustrious Danish compatriot - both riding for the country's very same continental outfit, ColoQuick, and then taking the same famed KOM up the Coll de Rates in Alicante, too. However, the 19-year-old's now made his transition onto Ineos Grenadiers' WorldTour squad and is beginning his own pro career in earnest.

As for the Col de Rates record, Øxenberg followed the wheeltracks of none other than Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who had taken the KOM record in 2018, only for Tadej Pogačar then to beat it at his UAE Team Emirates-XRG training camp. However, by this point, Øxenberg had already secured his move over to Ineos.

This was back in June of 2024. But as Ineos finally ensured they had a development pathway for their U23 riders by partnering with Lotto Kern-Haus PSD Bank, Øxenberg stepped down from the WT squad and into his under-23 career to try and gain some experience throughout 2025.

He's raced a mix of the Baby Giro, Vuelta a Burgos, all with the main goal of the Tour de L'Avenir, where he finished ninth overall behind the likes of Paul Seixas (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Jarno Widar (Lotto). But after August, he moved into a trainee role on the WT squad - and he is already finding his feet.

He spent almost all of Wednesday in the breakaway on stage 2 of the Tour of Guangxi, earning himself a stint in the King of the Mountains polka-dot jersey. The six-man group fractured in front and were all eventually mopped up before the bunch sprint, won by Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep). But it was a solid day nonetheless for the young Dane.

"The first part on the flat and the rainy part, it was more like Denmark, you know, it was raining all the time, so it was good. Then the hilly part suits me better, so I was feeling better," he told reporters in Jingxi.

"It's really big for me to wear a jersey. It's my third WorldTour race now, and I just took the step up, so I'm really stoked to be the leader of the mountains classification and be in the polka-dot jersey.

"And why not go for it until the end, no? Maybe I can get in some more breakaways to take more mountains points."

As Ineos undergo major changes in the off-season, with Geraint Thomas retiring, long-term staff members Oli Cookson and Zak Dempster departing for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Dave Brailsford coming back in a greater capacity, it's important not to let the likes of Øxenberg slip away and ensure their development is maintained.

"It has been quite a smooth transition. I have been working with all the staff of Ineos and have been riding on the Lotto Kern-Haus team to get more experience, and it's been good for me, yes," he said.

"It was clear that was the step I would take, and in the late summer, that came into place. It was planned at the beginning of the season already, and then I had the longer goal of L'Avenir, after which I would step up."

While shy, the 19-year-old didn't stop himself from dreaming big about a future as a GC racer, as eventually happened with two-time Tour winner Vingegaard. But having already felt the fury of a WorldTour peloton in his first appearances at the top level in the Canada one-day races, he is well aware that it will take serious time and effort.

"It's quite a big step up, but it's been good. There is quite a bit of difference because it's quite a bit faster here in the WorldTour peloton compared to the Under 23s. I have to get used to it, but it's good," said Øxenberg.

"Right now, I'm probably a puncheur, climber type of guy, but I hope to be a GC rider. It's a question of time and more experience, and maybe just getting a bit older and gaining some more power to get there."

While also hoping to hold onto the KOM jersey through the incoming harder stages in China, a solid climbing performance on the queen stage 5 to NongLa could also see him move up into the battle for the overall, as he is currently sitting in fourth overall, and only behind sprinters.

However, the likes of Óscar Rodríguez, AJ August or Michael Leonard could also step up for this very young Ineos team racing in China: the average age of the remaining five riders is just 21.

Cameron Jones (Scott-Shimano) and Sofía Gómez Villafañe (Specialized Off-Road) swept up the victories in the 100km (62 mile) long LIttle Sugar MTB, helping set the scene for the finale to the Life Time Grand Prix series at Big Sugar Gravel on October 18.

With the victory Villafañe clinched the overall win ahead of the final round of the six-race series but the men's competition just got tighter as a consequence of the win from Jones, who now sits on 97 points along with Simon Pellaud (Tudor Pro Cycling) making them both just one point behind current series leader and three-time series winner Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz htSQD). Torbjørn Andre Røed (Trek-Driftless) is also just a further point back with 96.

In the women's competition Villafañe took off within the first 10km of Little Sugar barellling into the singletrack and breaking away from her rivals to claim the win with a time of five hours, eight minutes and 32 seconds.

“It was super important to select the right tyres, sealant and inserts today, but most importantly, riding smoothly," said Villafañe. "There were a few times where I sat up to look back, and I had to unclip where I messed it up. I went solo up the grassy hill at the start and expected Alexis Skarda to catch up with me, but she was riding at her own pace, so it was a bit lonely out there for me today."

Alexis Skarda (Santa Cruz htSQD) took second two minutes and 57 seconds behind Villafañe while it was then Melisa Rollins (Liv) who crossed the line in Bentonville for third, more than five minutes behind the race winner.

In the men's race Jones also went early but it was initially with a break of seven, Swenson tailing off behind due to an early puncture, Then it was down to three riders out front when Matthew Beers (Specialized Off-Road) and Bradyn Lange (Pinarello / Orange Seal) were the only ones that could follow the New Zealander as he pushed the pace. About a third of the way through Jones, who claimed victory at Unbound this year, went out alone and rode to victory in Arkansas as well with a time of four hours and 17 minutes.

“I had awesome legs today," said Jones. "My race plan was to be as far forward in the singletrack as possible so I could ride at my own pace and not get stuck in traffic. I led from early on, and Bradyn Lange came back to me a few times after distancing him, but there were various mechanicals behind me, and I just had to focus.

“I was focused on the trail in front of me, avoiding any rocks and trying not to make any mistakes. Just like at Unbound, it was good to be able to ride my own race and pick my own lines on the downhill sections. I overcooked the first half of the race and was suffering from a few cramps just before the halfway point, but it was good to have a bit of a buffer back to second place, so I could sit up and manage that, but was a fun day on the trails."

The Life Time Grand Prix competitors will soon face another with the series decider, also in Bentonville, on October 18. The Big Sugar Gravel finale with play out on a 160.3km (99.6 mile) course with 1,890m (6200 feet) of elevation gain.

For any other 19-year-old rider, riding not only their first Il Lombardia but their first Monument of any kind, finishing seventh and becoming the youngest Monument top 10 finisher in over 100 years would be a huge achievement.

But for Paul Seixas, who achieved exactly that on Saturday, bettering riders like Egan Bernal and Jay Vine to finish where he did, there was still some disappointment at the end of his extraordinary first professional season.

Only turning 19 at the end of September, the prodigious Seixas has immediately rubbed shoulders with the best in the WorldTour in 2025, only dipping into under-23 level once to win the Tour de l'Avenir, and most recently finishing third at the European Championships behind only Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel.

With such impressive results to his name, and a lot of expectations on his shoulders – both from outside and from within – it was clear that the Frenchman's ambitions are higher than finishing seventh.

"I'm a bit disappointed because I was in the right group, but then I was done, and the riders in front were stronger," he told the media at the finish of Lombardia. "I fought until the end, I gave everything, and that's what I wanted to do today."

His immediate reaction was to point out the moments that could have gone better, as he suffered in some of the key moments towards the end of the race.

"I felt like my legs were a bit better than last week," he said, referencing the European Championships.

As pointed out by L'Équipe, finishing seventh at 19 years old makes Seixas the youngest rider in a men's Monument top 10 since 1917, when Luigi Cuppi finished fourth in Milan-San Remo at 18.

Seixas pointed out the length and difficulty of his first-ever Monument at still only a teenager as something that perhaps limited him on Saturday.

"In the end, maybe it was the distance and the high pace, but I got caught out a bit on a descent, positioning was hard, and at the last moment before the descent, I got caught a bit far back, and the effort I had to put in to get back probably cost me a bit," he said.

"Then, honestly, I felt good even on the last climb, like I said, maybe a bit better than last week, either way, really good, and I did what I could with the legs on the day. I'm a bit disappointed to have ended up alone [at points] because I was pretty knocked out on the descent, and being alone didn't help. But then I rejoined a small group, and I managed to recharge a bit for the finish."

However, after his initial dissection and some reminders from the assembled press that he had just finished seventh in his first-ever Monument, Seixas did start to reflect positively on what he had achieved.

"At the end I was spent, I gave everything to get the best result, and seventh already is really good," he said.

"It's really great, and also I was too far back to fight with the group that went for the podium so it's a great way to end the season."

Seventh in Lombardy is indeed a high point to finish Seixas' debut season where, particularly in recent weeks, he has proved his worth against the very best riders in the world, and he pointed to that mental belief and confidence as just as important as the physical performances.

"I've passed a physical milestone but also a mental milestone, where I can now tell myself that I have a place [amongst the best riders] and I'm managing to hold on a little better," he said. "That's all the work of the whole season paying off, and I'm happy to finish off on a good note."

A week after the biggest names in women’s road racing marked and controlled each out of contention at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda, many of them will look for revenge and amends at the UEC Road European Championships in France.

New world champion Magdeleine Vallieres of Canada will obviously not be in action but Demi Vollering (Netherlands), Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), and Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland) are all determined to fight back after a frustrating and disappointing race in Rwanda.

Many of the biggest riders admitted they marked each other and let the rainbow jersey escape their grasp, fearing the altitude and the difficulty of the Kigali course. A lack of race radios and riding for national teams also changed the complexion of the race and Vallieres' aggressive performance and victory was a lesson for the stars of the women’s peloton.

The 116km European Championship race is hilly but not as extreme as Kigali. It should produce a finely balanced, more open race.

The elite men’s and elite women’s road races start in Privas and then ride north, covering two different circuits, with the finish in Guilherand Granges, near Valence and overlooking the Rhone valley in southwestern France.

The women climb the Montée de Costebelle on the Guilherand Granges circuit once, then the far more testing 6.6km, 7.8% Saint-Romain-des-Lerps climb, before a final climb over the Montée de Costebelle. The riders pass through the finish four times before the winner takes the special white jersey with blue bands and yellow stars.

2204 winner Lorena Wiebes is not defending her 2024 win due to the testing nature of the course.

Considering the race route and the World Championships, these are the Cyclingnews contenders for the elite women’s UEC European Championships.

Our dark horses and outsiders include Cédrine Kerbaol (France), Anna Kiesenhofer (Austria), Anna Henderson (Great Britain) and Urška Žigart (Slovenia).

Demi Vollering (Netherlands)

Demi Vollering was the best of the big-name women in Rwanda and her seventh place and third in the time trial perhaps earned her a clear leadership role for the European Championships.

She will surely not let the race go up the road and out of her control for a second time.

Teammate Anna van der Breggen was second in the time trial but was dropped early in Rwanda and finished 11 minutes down. She is part of the Netherlands team for Saturday’s road race, along with Femke de Vries, Shirin van Anrooij and Pauliena Rooijakkers. If they race united, the Netherlands will have an impact on the race.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)

Elisa Longo Borghini was very critical of her own performance rather than the tactical games that left her empty handed in Rwanda and is no doubt plotting revenge on Saturday.

Longo Borghini won the Giro d’Italia Women for a second time in June but then had to abandon the Tour de France Femmes before stage 3. True to character she worked hard to recover and rebuild her form and appears near her best.

The squadra azzurra will again back ‘ELB’, with Elena Cecchini, Vittoria Guazzini, Silvia Persico and Barbara Malcotti, who went on the attack in Rwanda, on the entry list.

Marlen Reusser (Switzerland)

Reusser endured a terrible 2024 season but appears back to her best and happy after racing a full season with new team Movistar in 2025.

She added a fourth European time trial title to her world title on Wednesday and so seems to have overcome the complex travel from Africa to France and is clearly on form.

Reusser is a true rouleur and can climb, so Saturday’s hilly course is suited to her and her Swiss team. Her victories at the Tour de Suisse and second places at the Vuelta España Femenina and the Giro have reiterated that Reusser is far more than a time trialist.

Elise Chabbey and Noemi Rüegg are other cards for the Suisse team to play, but watch for Reusser using her power and time trial prowess to try to make a strong attack.

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland)

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney was frustrated and tired after finishing tenth in the world championships, the words ‘it sucks’ repeated several times in the mixed zone.

She excels at fighting back from defeat and fighting on in search of success and pèroved her determination by the way she won the Tour de France Femmes in 2024 and has finished on the Tour podium four times.

Niewiadoma-Phinney lacks the support of a major national team but is clearly on form, despite a long hard season.

Mavi García (Spain)

Mavi García is a fighter, who has overcome many battles to succeed time and time again. She did it again to take the bronze medal in Rwanda and there’s no reason she can't succeed again in France on Saturday.

Age is just a number for the Spaniard and she excels in challenging one-day races. Watch for her to again race out front and instigate key breakaways before racing hard in the final kilometres.

If the so-called super stars of women’s cycling again look at each other and hesitate after the climbs, García could take off yet again. She was the best European rider in Rwanda and so a real threat in the European Championships.

It was a photo to remember for Ireland's Ben Healy as he stood on the podium with the bronze medal hung around his neck next to world champion from Slovenia, Tadej Pogačar, and bronze medallist from Belgium, Remco Evenepoel, at the UCI Road World Championships in Kigali.

The 25-year-old credited a newfound self-belief and confidence on a challenging course against the likes of Pogačar and Evenepoel to his stunning performance at the Tour de France this July, where he won a stage and wore the yellow jersey.

"It's a special photo, a lot of the greats in there," Healy said following the podium ceremony at the Kigali Convention Centre.

"I've been progressing year-by-year, just a few percent here and there, and refining the way that I race as well. Definitely, a Tour de France like I had this summer gave me the extra little boost. I knew what I needed to do today. It worked out great."

Healy races for EF Education-EasyPost throughout the season and won stage 6 into Vire Normandie, moving into the race lead on stage 10 into Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy at the Tour de France. He eventually lost the leader's jersey on the stage 12 climb to Hautacam to four-time overall winner Pogačar, but ended up finishing ninth overall in what was his best Grand Tour performance.

In Kigali, Healy formed part of a chase group that formed on the roads behind Pogačar, which whittled down to just three riders in the closing lap, including Evenepoel and Denmark's Mattias Skjelmose.

Evenepoel eventually rode away from Healy and Skjelmose with 20km remaining in an attempt to close the gap to a solo Pogačar. The pair continued to work together until the final cobbled climb of the Côte de Kimihurura, where Healy dropped the Dane and went on to claim the bronze medal.

He described this event as the hardest road race of his career. "It was an insane race. I think the results show that quite well. I managed to pace my effort well and still have something to give at the end," said Healy, noting that only 30 riders finished.

"To be honest, we're all on our hands and knees; it was just to recover any legs left. In my mind, it was all about conserving. You have to focus on yourself. If you dig too deep too early, you pay for it."

Healy highlighted the throngs of fans out on course for the elite men's race, especially at the mid-race Mont Kigali, all out to watch the international peloton competing at the first-ever Road World Championships held in Africa.

"It was incredible, the crowds were insane, and I've never seen a crowd like it. On the podium, too, there were so many people. It was pretty cool."

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

Seventh place for Tsige Kahsay Kiros in the junior women's road race at the historic 2025 UCI Road World Championships on Saturday saw her simultaneously both crack the top ten for Ethiopia - and claim a breakthrough result for herself.

Born in Adigudem, the 18-year-old animated the opening laps of the 74km event, and not even a mid-race crash could hold her back as she powered up the final climb, Côte de Kimihurura, closing the gap to five riders who had split off the front, right at the finish line.

"We are not surprised at all. We knew there was something there. We didn't want to put too much pressure on her. She already puts a lot of pressure on herself. We knew there was something," Kiros' coach Clint Trevino Hendricks told Cyclingnews, noting that she came into these Worlds as one of the favourites in the junior category.

Hendricks is the sporting coach for the World Cycling Centre (WCC), which supports athletes worldwide. He explained that Kiros' all-round talent was discovered last year by a mechanic through the Ethiopian Cycling Federation.

"We discovered her last year through a local mechanic, and they are in Mekelle [capital of the Tigray region in Ethiopia - Ed.]. We spoke with him and the Ethiopian national federation, asking if they had any talented riders that they thought would be good. They recommended her."

Kiros was then invited to join the development programme at the WCC Continental Satellite in Paarl, about 60 kilometres northeast of Cape Town in South Africa.

"We did some testing and training there and brought her onto the programme for this year," Hendricks said.

Once officially signed with the WCC programming, Kiros spent some time previewing the road race course in Kigali, and then travelled to Brittany, France, where she had been living and training full-time for the 2025 season.

"We brought them here [Kigali] in February for a small training camp, did some bike fits, and then we went across to Brittany in April, where we did more of our racing. She has been living and racing there for this whole year, " Hendricks said.

Earlier in the year, she won four of the five stages and the overall title at the Tour Tigrai Women Stage Race in Ethiopia in March. She also won the junior women's road race title in June. In France, Kiros was the youngest rider to compete in the 2025 edition of the Tour de l’Avenir, where she finished 22nd in the overall classification.

"We had a chat before we started [Worlds]. She did the Tour de l'Avenir and did very well, but I think there are some small things that she can improve on," Hendricks said.

In the junior women's road race, which was held across five laps of a challenging city circuit that included a climb over the Côte de Kigali Golf and the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura, it was clear that Kiros was in contention for the world title from the beginning. She often led the field on the cobbled ascent during the opening laps, whittling down the field to a small selection.

"From today, the plan was to wait for the last lap, but I think she got excited for the crowds and the environment here, shouting and cheering. In the car, we had to phone the soigneurs in the feedzone to tell her to calm down," Hendricks said.

Five riders split off the front: Spain's Paula Ostiz, Italy's Chantal Pegolo and Giada Silo, Switzerland's Anja Grossman and Canada's Sidney Swierenga. But Kiros did not give up powering over the top of the climb and onto the smoother tarmac, closing the gap to the five leaders right at the finish line to finish seventh.

"She came very close, and there is definitely a lot of power there. She learns at her first World Championships," Hendricks said.

"Any top 10 for us would have been a good result, but once you see the race, we knew she could do something special."

Asked if Kiros would remain with the WCC team in 2026 or if she might graduate to ProTeam or WorldTeam, of which many have development programmes, Hendricks said he could not reveal those details.

However, he is sure that she will progress to the highest level of professional cycling teams and races in the very near future.

"Really bright, really bright. I told her, just now, that it's OK, we will learn from this, and a top 10 is still a good result. It is impressive. She will win the Tour de France Femmes one day."

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

The Great Britain team in the junior men's road race at the World Championships made history in a dominant fashion on Friday, winning the event for the first time and finishing with three riders in the top five in the process.

Winner Harry Hudson went on a long and brave solo move, attacking some 36km before the finish in Kigali, and holding on despite some fierce chasing to claim the rainbow jersey – the first time a British male rider has ever done that.

Not only did Hudson take the win, but his teammates Max Hinds and Matthew Peace finished fourth and fifth behind him, by far the best results for one nation in the race.

Though this is the first junior men's road race title for GB, the team has won titles in the men's time trial and women's junior events in recent years with riders like Cat Ferguson and Josh Tarling, and often finished on the podium, highlighting successful development pathways for young riders in Britain.

"The British riders this year were super strong, we've got lots of racing, the level is really high," Hudson said, who has ridden a full international programme this year, and taken wins at home and abroad.

"The support we get from GB at these events is great, we've basically got everything done for us, so we can just focus on performing in the race, which we did today."

The British team were congratulated by British cycling legend Mark Cavendish as they waited to see their teammate take to the podium.

Though Team GB only sent one under-23 male rider to Kigali, they sent a full complement in the junior category, and started the day with several options. They placed a rider in an earlier break, allowing Hudson to sit back until he saw a moment to attack.

"The plan was just to be up near the front of the race, and I saw an opportunity with 35km to go," he said. "I just decided to give it a go, and see if anyone came. I was solo, so I just decided to see if I could hold on, and settled into my rhythm.

Over 30km on his own was a long time for Hudson, and the gap was never huge, so it wasn't until the very final kilometres that he thought he could win.

"At the top of the cobbled climb was maybe where I thought I probably had it," he explained.

Hudson's exploits this year have earned him a spot on the Lidl-Trek Future Racing team for 2026, his new team announced shortly after he pulled on the rainbow jersey in Kigali, so it's clear his future is bright. But on Friday, the 18-year-old was just trying to process what he had just done.

"It's still sinking in to be honest," he said. "I'm really happy to have won the race, I really liked the course. It suited me quite a lot, it was going to be really hard and attritional. It's crazy."

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

Despite being the youngest rider in the under-23 category at not yet 19, Viktória Chladoňová (Slovakia) came away with the most medals in her age group at the Road World Championships, finishing second in both the time trial and road race.

Chladoňová, who races for Visma-Lease a Bike on the road, only graduated from the junior category last year – she also took double medals at the 2024 World Championships – and has impressed immensely, capping off the year with two silver medals in Kigali.

The Slovakian was the only rider to podium in both events, and one of only two riders to finish in the top 10 in both, the other being Alena Ivanchenko (Independent Neutral Athletes).

Chladoňová may not have taken a pro win in her first year like her former junior rival Cat Ferguson, but the 18-year-old stepped up to the under-23 category to enormous success, despite being up against riders three or four years older than her, who have had multiple seasons in the WorldTour.

"If you believe in yourself, everything is possible," she said was the lesson she would take home from these World Championships after finishing second in the road race.

"I'm super happy with two silver medals, because I'm first time in the under-23 category, and to go home with two silver medals from this World Championships is something amazing and I can't believe it."

Much of the women's under-23 road race was a tactical standoff, with riders relying on the hard parcours to whittle things down instead of attacking, but Chladoňová was attacking and active until the end, despite having to come back from a crash.

"In the last 500 metres I tried to take advantage in the uphill part and I started sprinting early, but maybe I should have started later, but I tried to do my best," she said of the finale. "Also, in the last two laps on the first climb, I tried to attack and make the bunch smaller. So I think I gave everything and I'm super happy with this silver medal."

Despite coming from one of the smaller teams in the race, Chladoňova did not hold back from being active against the bigger teams, and in the end, she took advantage of the French two-up attack to secure the silver.

"I think the French team had a really good tactic, and when Marion [Bunel] attacked I tried to follow, and Célia [Gery] was behind me and we had a gap, so I was happy that we had a gap," she explained. "In the last few hundred metres, I think Marion from the French team gave everything for Celia. I'm also super happy that I was in the situation because it secured me a medal."

Whilst other riders suffered in the heat and altitude on Thursday – only 35 riders finished from 81 starters – Chladoňová said the hard conditions played into her advantage.

"With the heat, it wasn't that bad because the sun at one point wasn't shining so much. With the altitude, I don't have a problem with the altitude at all, so I think it was to my advantage. Also, last year in Andorra I was at altitude, and I felt really good, so I think that also helped that it was at altitude," she said.

Chladoňova may have been the youngest rider on the under-23 startlists, and maybe a name that flew under some radars, but with two silver medals to her name, she's certainly going to be a rider to remember from this Championships.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

The elite women's peloton will line up to contest what is anticipated to be one of the most brutally challenging races in the history of the UCI Road World Championships on Saturday in Kigali, Rwanda.

The race will feature 11 laps of a 15.1km city circuit, totalling 164.4km and 3,350 metres of elevation gain, with its highest point at 1,493 meters. There are two climbs on the circuit: the Côte de Kigali Golf climb, 800m at 8.1% halfway around the local circuit, and the decisive Côte de Kimihurura climb, 1.3km at 6.3% on the circuit close to the finish, which is cobbled, and which some of the women will have already experienced in the individual time trial last Sunday.

The 3,350 metres of elevation gain, altitude and the cobbled ascent call for a special type of rider who is an exceptional climber, but who is also explosive and technically savvy, and so, at first glance, offer little room for surprises.

There will be no defending champion this year as the two-time winner from Belgium, Lotte Kopecky, opted not to compete due to ongoing back pain, leaving the race wide open for a new world champion to take her place in Kigali.

Cyclingnews takes a closer look at a handful of the riders to watch at this historic World Championships.

Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius)

Kim Le Court-Pienaar has had a stunning season, highlighted by winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège and standing on the podium in four stages, winning stage 5 into Guéret and wearing the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. She has been on a steep trajectory over the last two seasons, turning heads last year with a stage win at the Giro d'Italia.

She raced for two years, from 2015 to 2016, for Continental teams Matrix Fitness and Bizkaia-Durango, but restarted her career on the WorldTour with AG Insurance-Soudal, signing a contract from 2024 through to the end of 2028.

Le Court-Pienaar is one of Africa's best chances of winning a rainbow jersey at the historic Rwanda Worlds. Given the difficulty of the course and her strengths as a rider, she has every chance of winning this race on the streets of Kigali.

She expects a race of attrition, and while she won't have as many teammates as nations like Italy and France, she will have the support of Mauritius and the Continent in her aim to win the world title.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)

Elisa Longo Borghini will have the support of a full squadra azzurra of seven riders in their attempt to win the rainbow jersey. Many national teams have opted not to send a full roster, and some nations did not send a team at all. So, the Italians will not only have the advantage in numbers, but also one of the best riders in the world.

Longo Borghini has had a few ups and downs over the years, but with back-to-back Giro d'Italia wins, a triumph at Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders, and several other top Spring Classics, she will line up as one of the main favourites for this race.

The Italians are well-known for their cohesion and near-perfect tactical racing; look no further than the Leuven Worlds won by Elisa Balsamo, but despite having the numbers in Kigali, the brutally challenging course might not lend itself well to a game of tactics. Even so, Longo Borghini has been known for her aggressive racing style and revels in a tough challenge, often emerging victorious.

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (South Africa)

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio has also struggled with health and injuries over the last year, but seems to be coming into top form ahead of these Worlds, lining up as one of the most experienced African riders in the field, having competed in the top-tier in Europe for the last 15 years.

She will represent her nation of South Africa and has extensive experience racing in various national-level races across Africa, as well as in the African Championships. She previewed this course last November and arrived straight from an altitude training camp in the Pyrenees to prepare for the Classics-style race at an altitude of 1,450 metres.

A specialist of the Ardennes Classics, her strength on the climbs, local course knowledge and motivation to bring South Africa a world title make her one of the biggest riders to watch in Kigali

Marlen Reusser (Switzerland)

An outstanding world-title winning performance in the individual time trial has put Marlen Reusser in the hot seat as a favourite for the elite women's road race, where she could win a second rainbow jersey in Kigali.

While she is known for her strength in the time trial, she is also one of the top climbers in the world, having won overall titles at the Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Suisse this year, and secured second overall at the Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia.

She admits that the challenging course suits her; a strong climber and fast descender, she has never shied away from a breakaway, which often leads to victories, and she will be among the selection of riders in pursuit of the world title in Kigali.

Noemi Rüegg is another Swiss rider to watch, having finished third at Milan-San Remo in the spring; she sets herself up as a support rider for Reusser and a potential second card to play for a medal.

Demi Vollering and Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands)

Like the Italians, the Dutch are also known for their strength in numbers, but this year marks a turning point with only six riders on the start line. Still, they have two big favourites in former world champion Anna van der Breggen and former Tour de France winner Demi Vollering.

Both riders finished the individual time trial in the medals earlier this week, behind winner Reusser, Van der Breggen earned silver and Vollering bronze. There were mixed feelings about their performances, with Van der Breggen pleased to earn a medal in her first year back from a three-year retirement and Vollering hoping to have done better.

With a last chance to win an elite women's world title in Kigali, the Dutch team will want to put their best foot forward to set up Van der Breggen and Vollering for the best shot at victory.

Vollering is likely to be the leader, having shown strong performances this year, winning Strade Bianche, the Vuelta a España, Itzulia Women, and Volta a Catalunya, while also finishing second overall at the Tour de France and the Tour de Suisse, and on the podium at Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. However, she was not feeling her best in the individual time trial on Saturday.

Van der Breggen will give the Dutch a second card to play. She has been steadily improving her form this year, with highlights including a second-place finish at Strade Bianche, a third-place finish at the Vuelta a España, a sixth-place finish at the Giro d'Italia, and a silver medal in the time trial last weekend. She is also a two-time road world champion and has the experience to back up a strong performance in Kigali.

A family matter has prevented former world champion Marianne Vos from competing at these Worlds, and Femke de Vries has replaced her. However, the team also has support riders Shirin van Anrooij, Pauliena Rooijakkers, and Yara Kastelijn, making one of the most powerful teams on the start line.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France)

Returning to road racing this year with Visma-Lease a Bike, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has surpassed everyone's expectations, winning Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France, and she is aiming to add a second-career elite women's road race world title to her long list of achievements.

Ferrand-Prévot is no stranger to the rainbow jersey, having spent most of her career wearing one. She has won 15 world titles across mountain biking, cyclocross, and road cycling, with her last world title on the road from Ponferrada in 2014.

She has not only demonstrated her ability to win in the cobbled and hilly Spring Classics but also in the high-altitude ascents, with the technical and tactical skill of a champion.

Like Italy, France is the only other national team to fill a full roster of seven riders to support Ferrand-Prévot, and with riders like Juliette Labous, Évita Muzic, and Maeva Squiban, who turned heads with two stage wins at the Tour de France, will help bring back dangerous breakaways and set up Ferrand-Prévot for a victory.

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland)

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney has been one of the most consistently strong riders of the season, but only really reached her top form at the Tour de Suisse in June, where she finished third overall.

After winning the Polish national title, she went into the targeted Tour de France aiming to win a second overall title, and while that did not happen, she managed to fight her way back onto the podium, finishing third behind Ferrand-Prévot and Vollering.

Niewiadoma-Phinney explained to Cyclingnews that the Rwanda Worlds course, while hilly and well-suited to her, will be extra challenging due to the altitude. She anticipates only having one chance to make a big move, without the ability to recover between efforts, so she intends to make her efforts count.

Poland only has three riders on the start line, but Niewiadoma-Phinney said she will likely play off the bigger teams, such as Italy and the Netherlands.

Antonia Niedermaier (Germany)

Germany's best chance at a medal rests on the shoulders of Antonia Niedermaier, but she will have a strong team to support her with the likes of Liane Lippert and German road race champion Franziska Koch on the three-rider team.

We can anticipate Lippert attempting to join an early breakaway and playing that card to perfection for Germany, but it is more likely that the race will end in a selection of strong climbers.

Niedermaier, the German time trial champion, has had a strong season, often finishing among the top climbers, with seventh-place finishes at the UAE Tour, eighth at Itzulia Women, and fifth at the Giro d'Italia.

After a sub-par performance at GP de Plouay, she was able to turn her season around with a recent sixth place in the time trial at the World Championships, and she appears to be in good form for the road race.

Niamh Fisher-Black (New Zealand)

Niamh Fisher-Black won the under-23 road race at the World Championships in Wollongong in 2022, and she will aim to improve on that in the elite race in Kigali.

Racing for Lidl-Trek during the year, she has excelled in leadership roles, finishing sixth overall at the Vuelta a España, fourth overall at the Tour de Suisse, and fifth at the Tour de France.

She was also in the top 10 at Strade Bianche, Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, showing her versatility across challenging one-day terrain.

New Zealand will only field two riders, along with Ella Wyllie, so the pair will have to manage their efforts. While it will be impossible to follow every move, Fisher-Black will undoubtedly be among the selections in the final.

Mavi García (Spain)

An outside chance for this World Championships is Spain's Mavi Garcia, who excels in challenging one-day races, often preferring to race out front, instigating breakaways and going on long solo attacks.

She is consistently among the top 10 in either stages or one-day races, most recently catching the peloton off guard on stage 2 of the Tour de France to claim the solo victory in Quimper.

Spain also fields several powerful climbers, such as Ane Santesteban and Sara Martin, on its six-rider roster, so Garcia will have the support she needs in the early stages of the race.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

The under-23 men’s road race at the Road World Championships in Rwanda is upon us, and things will look a little different this year.

The peloton of 123 riders set to tackle the 164.6km course in Kigali will be run without any professional riders for the first time since 2015, after which rules were introduced to allow any WorldTour or ProTeam rider under the age of 23 to participate

This year, following another rule change, only non-professional riders will be racing, meaning that 21-year-old reigning champion and Visma-Lease A Bike pro Niklas Behrens won’t be lining up. The rule change also counts out a wealth of other well-known riders, including Isaac del Toro, Matthew Brennan, Romain Grégoire, Giulio Pelizzari, and Jan Christen.

However, several familiar names will still be taking part in the race, including a host of the next big things in road racing – riders already working their way through the development and Continental racing programmes of top-tier teams.

Here’s our pick of the top riders to watch at this year’s Road World Championships under-23 men’s road race.

Jarno Widar (Belgium)

Belgian leader, Jarno Widar, comes into the race with the biggest reputation of the riders taking the start on Friday. The 19-year-old already has one under-23 road race under his belt. He finished seventh at last year's race in Zurich, having smashed the race apart from the front before cramping late on.

He won the Alpes Isère Tour, Giro d'Italia Next Gen, and Giro della Valle d'Aosta as an 18-year-old, and this year added a swathe more titles to his palmarès. Wins at the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège, La Flèche Ardennaise, the Ronde de l'Isard, and another Valle d'Aosta title came this season, while he finished runner-up at the Tour de l'Avenir, winning two mountain stages along the way.

The rainbow jersey is his main goal of the season, even if he recently missed the Worlds time trial after suffering a leg injury last month. His demonstrable strength in the hills and mountains makes him the top favourite in this race before he steps up to the pros next season.

Lorenzo Finn (Italy)

18-year-old Lorenzo Finn leads Italy, having won the junior men's road race in Zurich last time out. The youngest rider in the race has taken to the under-23 level with ease at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies, putting in a string of impressive results in spite of his young age.

Back in the spring, he narrowly missed out to Widar at La Flèche Ardennaise, won the Giro del Belvedere, and finished top five in the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège. At his Giro Next Gen debut, he finished sixth overall and won the mountains classification, while he missed the podium by just three seconds at the Tour de l'Avenir.

He's in good form in this late-season period, too, having finished fourth in the under-23 time trial at the weekend. Finn looks set to feature among the favourites at the weekend, even if he isn't the outright tip for success.

Jakob Söderqvist (Sweden)

The newly crowned under-23 time trial champion is Sweden's only racer in the under-23 road race, one of his final races before he steps up to the WorldTour with Lidl-Trek next season.

Jakob Söderqvist already had plenty of experience with the senior team with 32 race days, including the Volta ao Algarve, Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, and Scheldeprijs. He's already won the elite Swedish time trial title as well as a time trial stage win at the Tour of Denmark.

However, as his time trial prowess – and a second place at Paris-Roubaix espoirs – show, he's more of a racer for the flat lands than the 3,500 metres of climbing which fill the course in Kigali. He may not be in the mix at the finish, but he's still one to watch this week and beyond.

Maxime Decomble (France)

Frenchman Maxime Decomble, 20, made the step up from the junior ranks this season, and he's enjoyed a real breakthrough in terms of results, too.

He'll move on up to Groupama-FDJ next season, while in 2025 he's finished second at the Alpes Isère Tour, third at the recent Worlds under-23 time trial, and top five at the Tour de l'Avenir and at the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

He also raced at the Etoile de Bessèges and O Gran Camiño earlier in the year, taking 15th and 12th places. Decomble heads up a three-man France selection and looks likely to figure in the mix for the medals.

Mateo Ramírez (Ecuador)

Ecuador's Mateo Ramírez counts among the talented young UAE Team Emirates Gen Z roster, having joined mid-season from Spanish club High Level-Gsport-Grupo Tormo.

He was already on the podium of Ecuador's elite men's road race back in February, while his move to UAE has since seen him take fourth in the Giro del Medio Brenta, sixth at the Tour de l'Avenir, and second at the Giro della Valle d'Aosta, where he also won the youth classification.

The 19-year-old Ramírez has shown his strength in the mountains and hills this season after finishing 61st at the junior road race last September. Like several others on this list, he'll be on his own for Ecuador on Friday.

Jakob Omrzel (Slovenia)

Also 19, Jakob Omrzel is Slovenia's great hope for the race, leading a five-rider squad which includes former pro Tadej Valjavec's son, Erazem.

Omrzel, who races for the Bahrain Victorious Development Team, is the best chance at success, however, having racked up some impressive results at under-23 level this season, including overall victory at the Giro Next Gen and ninth at the Circuit des Ardennes.

He's also already shown what he can do among a peloton of professional riders, racing to fourth overall on home roads at the 2.Pro race, the Tour of Slovenia in June. Anders Johannessen and Tao Geoghegan Hart were among his rivals then, and he should once again be right up there in this race.

Héctor Alvarez (Spain)

Héctor Alvarez is the second-youngest rider in the race, and at the age of 18, he'll head up Spain's six-man squad for the road race. He joined Lidl-Trek Future Racing this season and has impressed with a sixth place at the Giro della Regione Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and four top-10 placings on stages of the Tour of Austria and Vuelta a Burgos.

He already has an impressive string of results in various championships, including ninth in this year's under-23 time trial. Last year he was sixth in the junior road race and second at the European Championships junior road race.

The Spanish team will also be able to look to young UAE Gen Z talent Adrià Pericas for a result. The 19-year-old finished top 10 at the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro Next Gen this season.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

Megan Arens may not have had the smoothest preparations for the World Championships in Rwanda, but something about her exam-interrupted run-in clearly worked as she earned the Netherlands their first gold of the event with her junior time trial victory.

Arens, who turned 18 in March, was finishing high school this summer, mixing exams with a busy junior racing calendar. She still raced during the May exam period – taking second at the junior editions of Gent-Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders on the way – but couldn't train as much as she wanted.

However, focusing on shorter, solo efforts may have actually proved a plus for the Dutch rider.

"I had a really stressful year, because I finished high school this year, so I had a lot of exams and it was really stressful," she explained.

"So that meant that I couldn't really train as much as other people maybe, but I could focus good on time trials, because those trainings are not really long. So I think that was a good preparation for this."

The hilly and cobbled course in Kigali was no easy task – especially for a rider who mainly trained in the flat Netherlands – and has seen many riders come undone, including pre-race favourite Erin Boothman (Great Britain), who unclipped on the cobbled climb, but Arens put her win down to a calm and collected strategy.

"I think that at the beginning of the race, I tried to pace really good, because in the first downhill you can push yourself too hard," she explained.

"And you had to believe in yourself that in the downhill parts you could take some rest because that's good, and so that in the other uphill parts you can go full out. So I think that was my plan, and it worked out well. If you speak about a secret, I think that's what it is."

Despite the Dutch federation making cuts to their age-category and youth programmes ahead of the Rwanda Worlds, with no under-23 riders selected for the event, the juniors still made it to Kigali.

Arens even managed to go on an altitude camp ahead of the Worlds, along with her brother, father and the other junior women's riders. Winner of the junior time trial at the Dutch national championships, the TT in Kigali was a specific goal for the 18-year-old, and there was an outpouring of emotion and tears when she found out she had won.

"It's unbelievable," she said. "I still cannot believe it, actually. I worked so hard for this, and that it worked out is unbelievable."

Arens doesn't yet have a team announced for next year – her podium companions Paula Ostiz and Oda Gissinger are already confirmed for Movistar and Coop-Repsol respectively – but it would be surprising, with her results this year, if she hasn't already inked a deal somewhere. If she hasn't, she can expect a lot of interest after this result.

Though many junior riders, like Cat Ferguson, have jumped straight into winning ways in the elite race, Arens is hoping for a more measured development as she looks to emulate her compatriot and inspiration, Demi Vollering.

"I think for next year it's mainly focusing on learning to ride in a big peloton," she said. "I hope to see myself riding good stage races, and mainly the mountain races and time trials, of course."

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

Cole Kessler was the top US finisher in the men's under-23 time trial at the UCI Road World Championships on Monday in 11th place. After finishing the 31.2km course that he thought played to some of his strengths, he revised that assessment at the finish line at the Kigali Convention Centre, admitting he suffered with the climbing.

There was no medal for under-23 national time trial champion, but he found a silver lining with his Lidl-Trek Future Racing pro teammate, Jakob Söderqvist (Sweden), crushing the course and taking the hardware as the world's best.

"He's a really nice guy, a great rider. Jakob is a big talent," Kessler said as his teammate blasted through a second intermediate time check with a solid lead, and added, "Wow, he's going fast."

Both riders started their road careers in 2020 without a lot of fanfare with years of racing as juniors. Söderqvist earned his first medal, bronze, in the Swedish men's junior time trial race that year, while Kessler won his first medal, gold, in his junior TT in 2021.

The two joined Lidl-Trek's development team in 2024, the Swede giving the team a powerful engine as a GC rider while Kessler, an all-rounder as well, mixes his climbing abilities with tactical awareness for breakaway opportunities. They both love time trialling, but Kessler discovered the time trial didn't love him back in Kigali.

"I find myself right in the middle of being a climber and being like a pure power time trialist. So I thought that it [U23 ITT] wasn't gonna be too bad for me. It was really hard. I was pretty much suffering the whole day," Kessler told the media, including Cyclingnews, at the finish before Söderqvist stopped the clock as the best of the day.

Kessler said it was beneficial to get feedback on the U23 time trial course from US elite riders Chloé Dygert and Ruth Edwards from their ride on Sunday, as they competed on the same 31.2km route with the out-and-back double ascent of Côte de Nyanza (4.1km at 3.1%).

"They said pretty much what I felt out there on the course, how you have the pace to climbs. It's really all about how you can recover in between efforts," Kessler told Cyclingnews.

"Yeah, I struggled a little bit today, recovering in between efforts. I'm proud of my race."

The 22-year-old Californian has raced in Rwanda before, competing twice at Tour du Rwanda when he turned pro with Israel Cycling Academy from 2022-2023 and was part of the top-level roster for Israel-Premier Tech.

He saw improved results when he signed with Lidl-Trek Future Racing, taking a most combative rider award one day and finishing fifth in KOM standings at Tour de Wallonie last year and completing Tour of Denmark and Tour of Britain against WorldTour riders.

"I think the talent under-23 is the highest it's ever been. The level is insane. Honestly, I've raced quite a bit at the pro level, with some of the best riders in the world, and I'd say pro racing is a lot more controlled and less stressful than under-23. You're always fighting in under-23 races, so it makes it a bit more difficult."

He will next line up in the men's under-23 road race with Evan Boyle on Friday, that 164.6km event bringing 3,350 metres of elevation gain. The elite women will compete on the same course, a circuit completed 11 times, on Saturday, and this time it will be Kessler who can reciprocate, giving advice to Dygert and Edwards for their race.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

Jakob Söderqvist has ended his under-23 career in the best possible way - in the rainbow jersey, having won the category's individual time trial at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali on Monday.

At 22 years old, the Swedish rider will move up to the top-tier of racing with Lidl-Trek's WorldTour team, and while he may be a specialist in the race against the clock, he is also hoping for a chance to compete in a range of major Spring Classics.

"Personally, I don't put too much energy into expectations because of what I could be good at, and I don't want to build a box around me for what rider I am," Söderqvist said in a post-race press conference at the Kigali Convention Centre.

Söderqvist has spent the previous two seasons developing with the Lidl-Trek Future Racing team with much success. He finished second to his teammate Albert Withen Philipsen at the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs this spring, won the time trial stage and finished second overall to his teammate Mads Pedersen at the Tour of Denmark.

He also secured elite titles in the time trial national title, for the second time in a row, and the gravel national title at the Swedish Championships.

His focus will now be on planning his first season on the World Tour and getting to know himself better as a rider across various types of road races, from one-day races to major stage races.

"For sure, we will try to find a good strategy with how I approach my career in the coming years, and in the coming years, and what the focus will be," he said.

"The time trial is my biggest specialty at the moment, which I find the most natural, but in the coming years, I would really like to have projects around the bigger Spring Classics, in a similar fashion to this, and it could also be that some stage races suit me with my time trial capabilities.

"We will see how I develop year after year without trying to box myself in with expectations."

As for the individual time trial in Kigali, Söderqvist said he knew he had what it would take to win the world title, especially after finishing second place to Spain's Iván Romeo in Zürich last year.

"I think that at points I thought I could pull off a performance like this, but, for sure, it was not something that I expected to do in that way. I know that some stars have to align and you really have to have good preparations," he said, covering the hilly 32.1km course in a winning time of 38:24, over a minute faster than silver medallist Nate Pringle from New Zealand.

"I needed to be honest with myself about race pacing, but I think that I really put out the right key focuses throughout the course to make up as much time as possible in the most important race. I'm super, super proud of my race, but I knew that I had it in me."

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

The Dutch women's team for the UCI Road World Championships lost a key member after three-time road world champion Marianne Vos opted to remain in the Netherlands and will not travel to Rwanda for the elite women's road race.

Vos' Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Femke de Vries will replace her in Kigali.

"Her father had surgery last week," national coach Laurens ten Dam said, according to Nos.nl. "He was in the hospital. He's doing well under the circumstances, but it's been a very tense and hectic few days for Marianne. I called her this morning and we both said 'you're staying home'."

Vos has had a strong season, finishing second in the Classic Lorient Agglomération WorldTour race in Plouay last month, winning the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes and leading the race for three stages.

She also won stages of the Vuelta España Femenina and landed on the podium in De Brabantse Pijl and Milan-San Remo.

"She's there for the family now, which is much more important than riding your 18th World Championship... I've lost count," Ten Dam joked. Vos has actually competed in the UCI Road World Championships 16 times, winning the title in 2006, 2012, and 2013 and coming second six times – from 2007 to 2011 and again in 2021 behind Elisa Balsamo (Italy).

De Vries has also had a stand-out season, coming second overall at the Tour de l'Ardèche earlier this month. Ten Dam expects De Vries to arrive in Kigali soon.

"I want her back with the team as soon as possible," he said. "She's the woman in form, with a second-place finish in the Tour of the Ardèche.

"But Marianne Vos isn't necessarily replaceable. So I don't want Femke to step into those shoes. I don't want to put that pressure on her. But we do have a very strong new squad."

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

The 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali will be a unique event in the history of the sport. Cycling’s first Road World Championships ever to be held in Africa opens up opportunity to a continent where the sport is growing rapidly in parts.

Cycling is a sport with hundreds of narratives playing out at any one moment. The likes of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) will grab the headlines during this World Championships, but there will be so many more stories to tell of African riders competing in the biggest race of their lives.

Here, Cyclingnews highlights eight African riders to look out for during the Kigali Worlds, from favourites and outsiders, to future prospects and those with remarkable stories.

Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius)

Coming into these World Championships, Kim Le Court-Pienaar is undoubtedly Africa’s biggest rainbow-band hope. The AG Insurance-Soudal rider has had quite a remarkable year; becoming Africa’s first Monument winner at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April, before winning a stage at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and holding the yellow jersey for four days. Now, her focus is on winning the women’s elite road race in Kigali on a course that will suit her.

Le Court-Pienaar has truly joined the elite echelons of the women’s peloton this season, but her route to the top couldn’t be much more different to many of those she is now competing against. Born in Mauritius, Le Court-Pienaar moved to South Africa as a child. With financial help from her family, she first made the leap to race in Europe as a teenager in 2015, but had to return to South Africa the following year after struggling to make ends meet, despite competing in some of the biggest races in the world.

After years racing mountain bike, the now-28-year-old made it back to Europe for the 2024 season, with AG Insurance-Soudal taking a chance on her. She’s known to be a determined and mentally strong figure. She puts that down to the fight that she has had to get to where she is.

"Coming from so far and coming from a country with very, very little opportunities has put me in a different headspace than I think most girls in that bunch," she told Cyclingnews last year. "I think I want it a lot more."

After the year that she has had, Le Court-Pienaar will start the women’s elite road race among the favourites.

Natnael Tesfatsion (Eritrea)

With Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) firm favourites for the men’s elite road race, it’s difficult to see how any African riders will be able to compete for top honours over the brutal 267km elite road race course.

Movistar’s Natnael Tesfatsion will likely be among the strongest African riders in the men’s race and with Biniam Girmay saying that he will ride in a support role, Tesfatsion could be Eritrea’s leader. Tesfatsion was sixth overall at the Tour de Wallonie in July, finished as runner up at the Cadel Evans Road Race last year, and recently finished third at the Memorial Marco Pantani. He is also a two-time winner of the Tour du Rwanda, so he knows these roads well. He has a reputation as a solid climber with an extremely fast finish, but will need to put in the performance of his life in Kigali to secure a result.

Tesfatsion was given his big break in Europe with the Qhubeka development team in 2019 after the team spotted him racing well in China for an Eritrean club team, Eritel. After two years, the team wanted Tesfatsion to remain with the development squad for another season, but he was keen to push on, securing a move to Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec before moving on to Lidl-Trek and then Movistar.

Charles Kagimu (Uganda)

Ugandan Charles Kagimu will be hoping to put in an impressive ride during the hilly 40.6km men’s elite time trial on the opening day of the championships.

Kagimu is a double African time-trial champion, winning his first title in 2023 on Luke Rowe’s 2022 Ineos Grenadiers TT bike after training with the team in their January training camp that year as part of a development programme that Ineos supported at that time in Kenya.

The 26-year-old, who rides on the road for Team Amani, gained further notoriety by being the final finisher of a tough edition of the Olympic Games road race in Paris, having spent the first 190km in the breakaway and fought off flu just to get to the start-line. "It was really mind-blowing to see such crowds," Kagimu told Cyclingnews after the finish. "They just gave me a lot of motivation to finish the race."

Jazilla Mwamikazi (Rwanda)

Over the past three years, the UCI World Cycling Centre has been scouting and developing young talent across the African continent, giving the cream of the crop the opportunity to race and be part of training camps in Brittany as part of an initiative they have called ‘Africa 2025’. Dozens of riders have moved through this project, which aimed to enable African riders to be competitive at the Kigali Worlds.

Rwandan Jazilla Mwamikazi has been among the riders who have made the greatest strides forward during this time. According to World Cycling Centre coaches, the 20-year-old showed ability when she started with the programme, but was technically and tactically lacking.

This year, Mwamikazi has become unrecognisable from the rider who first joined the project. She has been a dominant force in local races in Brittany, winning almost every local race she competed in this summer. "Where she started from and where she's at now, I think she's not even close to her full potential yet," says World Cycling Centre Performance Director Clint Hendricks.

Mwamikazi then went on to race the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes where she finished a solid 47th overall and became Rwandan national champion this year. Also a competent mountain biker, Mwamikazi will target the first edition of the standalone women’s under-23 road race in Kigali.

Tsige Kahsay Kiros (Ethiopia)

Tsige Kahsay Kiros was the youngest rider to compete in the 2025 edition of the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes. Riding her first UCI race in Europe and still technically a junior, having just turned 18 in April, Kahsay was able to mix it with riders way beyond her level of experience throughout the seven stages. She eventually finished 22nd on GC, unremarkable at first glance, but in reality it was a stunning result for the young Ethiopian.

Kahsay will now go into the junior women’s races at the World Championships as something of a dark horse on a course that suits her perfectly and on roads that will be much more familiar to her.

At home in Ethiopia, Kahsay has been a dominant force in both junior and elite racing over the last couple of years. She has been guided in part by former WorldTour rider Tsgabu Grmay, who told Global Peloton during the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes that "she's always giving us a surprise. Excited for what she can do in the future. But definitely she has motivation and she wants to be a WorldTour rider and she's really a fighter."

Joshua Johnson (South Africa)

After starting to race at the age of 9, Joshua Johnson has emerged as one of the most promising riders to come out of South Africa in recent years. The rider from Durban was inspired to ride by his mountain biking father. Johnson followed a similar course in his early years before turning to the road, winning national titles through the age groups, becoming junior time trial champion this season in his first year at that level.

Johnson joined Team GRENKE-Auto Eder for this season, the junior feeder team of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and has raced a healthy European calendar. He was 16th at the junior E3 Saxo Classic in March and has followed that up with a series of solid results.

Johnson will race the 22.6km junior men’s time trial at the World Championships and in a three-man South African team in the road race.

Yoel Habteab (Eritrea)

In 2022, Yoel Habteab became just the second Eritrean to win the African Continental junior men’s road race title, following in the footsteps of Biniam Girmay, who was the first to win it four years earlier. Habteab followed that up the same year with a solid 28th place at the World Championships in Wollongong, his first UCI race outside of Africa.

Habteab is a rider who can climb and sprint well, important traits which can be found in many young riders from Eritrea. Few get the opportunity to develop those skills in Europe, but Habteab is one of the exceptions, signing for the German Bike Aid team at the start of the 2024 season. In the last two seasons, Habteab has raced across Europe, Asia and Africa, picking up top-10s in races such as the Tour de l’Ain and several King of the Mountains competitions.

The parcours in Kigali suits Habteab to the ground and he is likely to lead the Eritrean squad in the men’s under-23 road race. With several European nations opting not to take their under-23 squads due to cost and logistical challenges, the opportunity is open for a rider like Habteab to steal a big result.

Florence Nakagwa (Uganda)

Florence Nakagwa was the first female cyclist to join the Masaka Cycling Club in Uganda. She has spoken about how the culture in the East African country holds women back from sports, but she was inspired by her father and brothers to pursue a career in cycling.

Now, she races in Europe with development team Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto Generation, a team that exists to give opportunities to riders from non-traditional cycling backgrounds. Since Nakagwa joined the Masaka club, they have seen a wave of interest from young women wanting to join, and several club members will be racing in Kigali in their national colours.

It took almost a year for Nakagwa to secure her visa to travel to Europe, but she eventually made it at the start of this year. The 21-year-old has struggled to adjust to European racing this season, but will be motivated to do well in the under-23 road race in a World Championships that is less than 400km away from her home town.

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.

Tadej Pogačar is dominating the sport like few before him and has won his fourth Tour de France. But there is hope for his rivals and those hoping to emulate him in the second half of the decade.

Pogačar is now 26 and hinted he may not actually serve out his contract with UAE Team Emirates-XRG until 2030. He is likely to win a fifth yellow jersey and perhaps even a record breaking sixth Tour but has suggested the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games is one of the final goals of his career.

Jonas Vingegaard is currently Pogačar's biggest rival but the Dane is already 28. The Pogačar-Vingegaard Tour domination could end in the next two years, offering the next generation of super talents a chance to take the Tour de France crown in 2029, if not earlier.

This Cyclingnews next-gen Tour list includes riders already racing with WorldTour teams and those expected to step up to WorldTour level in 2026 or 2027.

These next-gen Grand Tour riders are skilled and ambitious. They have developed using the latest training techniques such as altitude camps and modern race nutrition. Some are still teenagers but they are ready to race at WorldTour level. The first post-Pogačar Tour winner is surely amongst them.

Remco Evenepoel, this year's Tour revelation Florian Lipowitz, Oscar Onley and Isaac del Toro are on the list, as are 2024 junior world champion Lorenzo Finn and Paul Seixas, tipped as the next French Tour winner after Bernard Hinault.

A number of riders didn't make the cut, in a warning sign for their careers.

They are hugely talented but are already showing their Grand Tour limitations and include Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike), who have faced different setbacks and disputes in the last two years. They could yet rebuild their Tour credentials but a new generation is already snapping at their heels and trying to take their privileged status in the peloton.

The Tour de L'Avenir begins on Saturday in the French Alps and will see many of the Tour next-gen in action including Seixas, Finn and Belgium's Jarno Widar. Other riders will make a youthful Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta.

The results of the prestigious junior Giro della Lunigiana stage race (September 4-7) are also worth watching to follow the future talents of the sport. Seixas won the Giro della Lunigiana last year, Lenny Martinez in 2021, Evenepoel in 2018, Pogačar in 2016 and Tao Geoghegan Hart in 2013.

Seixas, Finn, Widar and everyone on the Cyclingnews next-gen Grand Tour list are all names to remember and all are potential Tour de France winners for 2030 or even earlier.

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep)

There is a huge debate about if Remco Evenepoel can ever win the Tour de France but he is an undeniable generational talent. He does not have the climbing ability to match Pogačar in the mountains but was third on his Tour debut in 2024.

Evenepoel's move to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe next year will surely boost his development as a Grand Tour rider, with a stronger team and a performance structure also huge factors in his future development. Few riders are as mature, in control of their career and hungry for success like Evenepoel.

The 24-year-old Belgian's time trialing ability will always allow him to gain vital time on his rivals, especially against pure climbers. If ASO decides to add more and longer time trials in future Tours, it could tip the balance in Evenepoel's favour and help him win the yellow jersey.

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

The 21-year-old Mexican was the revelation of the 2025 Giro d'Italia but his overall victory in the 2023 Tour de L'Avenir was already a clear indication of his talents.

Isaac del Toro arguably lost the Giro due to lack of experience and bad tactics but it was a lesson learnt for the future. It also helped him rise in the UAE hierarchy and he wisely has the same agent as Pogačar, so it would not be a surprise to see him ride the 2026 Tour alongside Pogačar as part of his Grand Tour apprenticeship.

Albert Withen Philipsen (Lidl-Trek)

The Dane is just 18 but is already racing at WorldTour level with Lidl-Trek, while also targeting specific under-23 races and mountain bike races.

Albert Withen Philipsen was junior road race world champion in Glasgow in 2023 and then European junior time trial champion, with other success in mountain biking and cyclocross a confirmation of his many talents.

This year he won Paris-Roubiax Espoirs riding for the Lidl-Trek development team and so he may ultimately develop into a world class Classics rider rather than a Grand Tour contender but whatever road he ultimately takes, Withen Philipsen seems set to be a future star of the sport.

Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

Italy is desperate to find the next Vincenzo Nibali, who can win the Giro d'Italia and perhaps even the Tour.

Giulio Pellizzari, and perhaps Davide Piganzoli who rides for Team Polti-VisitMalta but is set to join Visma-Lease a Bike in 2026, appear to be the next great Italian stage racers. They finished second and third behind Del Toro in the 2023 Tour de L'Avenir.

21-year-old Pellizzari was cruelly stopped from winning a stage of the 2024 Giro by Pogačar but came on leaps and bounds after his move to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and finished sixth in this year's Corsa Rosa after designated leader Primož Roglič abandoned due to his crash injuries.

Pellizzari is part of the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team for the Vuelta a España. He is likely to target stage victories rather than the GC but like his close friend Del Toro, he has a laid back approach to life and racing that helps handle the pressures of being a Grand Tour contender.

Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies)

If Pellizzari and Piganzoli fail to develop in the years to come, then Anglo-Italian Lorenzo Finn could quickly usurp them.

Finn was second to Seixas in the 2024 Giro della Lunigiana and then won the junior road race world title in Zurich, with a ride as equally dominant as Pogačar in the elite men's race. He was sixth overall in the Giro d'Italia Next Gen while riding for teammate Luke Tuckwell (another name to remember) and won the mountains classification.

Finn is still maturing physically and is expected to stay with the Red Bull Rookies programme next season but will surely get a chance to ride a number of WorldTour races in 2026. Watch for him at the Tour de L'Avenir.

Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are both buying future Grand Tour talent and developing it in-house. Evenepoel is the expensive outside hire while 24-year-old Florian Lipowitz is in-house German talent.

He came to cycling late after competing in biathlon but stepped up to WorldTour level in 2023 and won the Czech Tour. He was third at the 2024 Tour de Romandie and showed his Grand Tour talents with seventh on his debut at the Vuelta, while helping Roglič win the overall.

He was second in Pais-Nice in March, third at Itzulia Basque Country and third at the Critérium du Dauphiné. The Tour should have been a journey of discovery but he became the revelation of the race, finished third overall and won the best young rider competition. Germany suddenly had a Tour de France contender.

Evenepoel's charisma and global profile may relegate Lipowitz down the Grand Tour pecking order in 2026 but Lipowitz is already ahead of Roglič and can only learn and improve as Evenepoel takes the spotlight and pressure.

Paul Seixas (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale)

France has been waiting for 40 years for the next home-grown Tour de France winner and Paul Seixas seems to be the answer to their gallic anguish.

Seixas is still a teenager but physically and mentally mature beyond his years. He won the junior world time trial title in Zurich and then was fifth on his professional debut at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Marseille. He impressed at the Tour of the Alps, gifting a win to teammate Nicolas Prodhomme, before finishing eighth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Seixas will lead the French team at the Tour de L'Avenir and the favourite for overall victory despite a field packed with other Gen Z super talents.

Decathlon have secured shipping giant CMA CGM as a second sponsor and boosted their budget to that of a super team. Internally, Seixas's development has been dubbed 'Project Tour 2030' but don't be surprised if Seixas becomes a Tour contender before that.

Decathlon also have ​​Léo Bisiaux on their roster to create some internal rivalry. The 20-year-old was fourth in the 2024 Tour de L'Avenir and recently took his first pro win on a mountain stage at the Vuelta a Burgos. He will make his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a España.

Jørgen Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike)

The 20-year-old Norwegian could easily be described as the next Jonas Vingegaard. Jørgen NOrdhagen is a pure climber and showed his professional potential even in 2024 when he was still racing for the Visma development team. He is part of the Visma 'white jersey' group of riders identified for special development.

Nordhagen was second at this year's Giro d'Italia Next Gen and won the final mountain stage, regretting not being more aggressive earlier in the eight-day race. He will surely not make the same mistake on the mountain stages of the Tour de L'Avenir while riding for the Norwegian team.

Jarno Widar (Lotto)

Many in Belgium hope that Evenepoel can one day win the Tour de France but Jarno Widar could do it before him. Widar has a contract with the Lotto programme until 2027 but is a true super talent, he could become the target of a hostile buyout if a major team goes after him.

The 19-year-old is already a proven stage race rider even before he steps up to WoldTour level in 2026.

He won the Giro d'Italia Next Gen and then the mountainous Giro della Valle d'Aosta in 2024. Widar was in tears after losing any chance of a second win at the Giro d'Italia Next Gen this summer due a crash but avoided any serious injury and returned to win three stages of the Giro della Valle d'Aosta.

Widar will lead the Belgian under-23 team at the Tour de L'Avenir and then at the Rwanda Road World Championships. New UCI rules mean many of his rivals who race for worldTour teams are unable to ride the under-23 race.

Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain Victorious Development Team)

Slovenian cycling seems to have found the next Tadej Pogačar, with 19-year-old Jakob Omrzel a prodigious talent.

Omrzel won the Giro d'Italia Next Gen with a brave, all-out attack in the final stage, doing enough to distance race leader Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies) and win the maglia rosa.

Omrzel suffered a life-threatening cut to his neck at the 2024 Giro della Lunigiana and spent a long spell in hospital but made a rapid recovery. He won the Junior Paris-Roubaix in 2024 and recently won the hugely prestigious GP Capodarco one-day race in Italy. He appears to have the ability to win every kind of race, just like Pogačar.

Pablo Torres and Adrià Pericas (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z)

Juan Ayuso is considered Spain's next great thing but behind him, Pablo Torres and Adrià Pericas are showing even more potential, even as teenagers. They will lead the Spanish team at the Tour de L'Avenir.

19-year-old Torres finished second overall at the Tour de L'Avenir in 2024. He won the final stage on the Colle delle Finestre gravel climb but a tactical blunder on stage 5 meant he lost five minutes to Britain's Joe Blackmore and just failed to gain enough time to win the GC.

Torres stepped up the UAE WorldTour team and has ridden a mixed programme that will allow him to peak for the Tour de L'Avenir.

Pericas is following a similar path but is riding for the UAE Gen Z development team in 2025. He will step-up in 2026 and has a contract until 2030, a sign UAE believe in his talents.