With an honours list packed with some of the biggest names in cycling's recent history, the Tour de l'Avenir is a perennial marker of future success, and the latest talent to emerge as a potential great is the Italian Lorenzo Finn.
The 19-year-old Italian, who rides for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's 'Rookies' development team, was the heavy favourite heading into the seven-stage race, and duly dominated it.
After taking the yellow jersey with victory in the stage 5 uphill time trial, Finn sealed the overall title in style on Wednesday's final stage, winning alone atop the high-altitude summit finish at Lago Serrù, as the French race crossed the border to his home Italian soil.
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"I couldn’t have ended this Tour de l’Avenir better. We really tried to go for the stage win today and we managed to pull it off. I'm super happy," Finn said. "It’s super nice to finish in Italy, there were a lot of people cheering me on on the last climb and the whole day. I’m just really happy to finish this week like this."
Finn already had a lead of more than two minutes on general classification, but finished almost 30 seconds clear of his closest challengers to top the final podium with an advantage of 2:34 over the Belgian Niels Driesen (Lotto-Groupe Wanty).
Driesen, who won the opening stage after a surprise late attack with Finn, was also the runner-up on the final stage, pipping Mateo Ramírez (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z) and Henrique Bravo (Soudal-QuickStep Devo) to the line at Lago Serrù.
Ramírez, who followed Finn's first attack on the final climb, but couldn't stand his second kick, almost rode his way onto the final podium, but Matteo Vanhuffel (Development Team Picnic-PostNL), despite suffering and losing 50 seconds, clung onto third place overall by a mere four seconds.
This was the first year that the Tour de l'Avenir was contested by trade teams, and not solely national squads, which opened up a new dynamic. All seven stages were won by riders representing development squads of WorldTour teams, which is perhaps of little surprise given many of the top WorldTour teams now have development arms and are snapping up talents from an early age.
Finn is the very brightest of them, and his victory is the latest feat in a remarkable 12-month spell that indicates he's more than ready to take the step to the WorldTour next season with the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team of Remco Evenepoel.
The Italian, whose father is British and whose middle name is Mark, won the U23 World Championship road race in Rwanda last September, and went on to dominate the Giro Next Gen – cycling's next most-important youth stage race – before doing the double with l'Avenir.
He follows in the footsteps of Paul Seixas, who won the Tour de l'Avenir last year at the age of 18, and went on to finish fourth at the Tour de France last month. Seixas would not have been allowed to ride l'Avenir under the new rules this year, which dictate that no rider who has already signed a pro contract is able to participate.
There is a broad consensus that Finn would not have been out of place in the pro ranks this season – indeed he has represented the Red Bull WorldTour team on loan, even forming part of a winning squad alongside Evenepoel at the Challenge Mallorca team time trial in January. But Finn preferred to do one final season in the youth ranks, and he has made it one of the best in recent history, with additional victories in the Sibiu Tour and the Italian one-dayers Giro del Belvedere and GP Palio del Recioto.
"This is a super important race. A lot of great riders have won it and I'm happy to pull it off," Finn said.
"It was the big goal of this season along with the baby Giro and we managed to tick it off. It's been a good year for me this year, I've achieved all my goals so far, there a few more to come but it's been a great year."
Recent winners of the Tour de l'Avenir include Isaac del Toro, Egan Bernal, and a certain Tadej Pogačar.
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