Next-Gen Radar: Tour de l'Avenir, junior talents, and all the under-23 action from August

Hello and welcome to the first in a new series for Cyclingnews, our monthly under-23 racing wrap-up!

As the pros get younger and younger and talent spotting gets more and more important for WorldTour teams, under-23 and even junior racing is more important than ever, so we wanted to start giving you a monthly overview of all the main stories, riders and races.

We'll mainly focus on road racing, and mainly the under-23 categories, but we'll throw in some junior races and some off-road stories too – multidisciplinary stars are the future, after all, and the junior ranks are the new under-23 when it comes to talent spotting.

We will include a revolving mix of sections, including obviously all the main results and transfers, but also dedicated sections on riders from Australia, New Zealand, North and South America and around the world, calling on expertise from our Australian and North American Editors.

We'd also love to know what you'd like to see in this round-up. Rider Q&As? Agent insights? More analysis? Let me know in the comments below; I'd love to hear your thoughts.

For now, though, let's get into all the main stories and action from August.

Racing and results

The biggest under-23 race in August was undoubtedly the Tour de l'Avenir, the long-standing race touted as the mini Tour de France and indeed often a very strong indicator of who will do well in the professional Grand Tours. This year's edition was a little bit different, as for the first time the event was raced primarily in trade development teams rather than national squads, which arguably made for a more professionalised dynamic.

Unfortunately, there was no women's race this year, after the organisers scrapped the race for 2026 citing costs and lack of development teams. They say they want to replace it with a women's junior race, but no word on that yet.

So, for the racing we did get: 23-year-old world champion and Giro d'Italia Next Gen winner Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies) went into the race as a huge favourite and duly delivered, winning the TT and the final road stage to secure the GC with a 2:34 gap.

Niels Driesen (Lotto-Groupe Wanty) finished second, with Picnic PostNL Development rider Matteo Vanhuffel third. The other stage winners were Driesen, Keije Solen (Lotto-Groupe Wanty), Davide Stella (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z), Kasper Borremans (Bahrain Victorious Development Team), and a name you probably already know, Aubin Sparfel (Decathlon CMA CGM Development Team).

The most interesting thing about the race was perhaps that it actually wasn't that surprising at all, and I think this comes down to the change to trade teams. With national teams, such a diverse range of riders got a chance to ride l'Avenir, and there were chances for riders to announce themselves there. Now, with the proliferation of development teams and indeed the growing professionalisation of the under-23 level, l'Avenir is less a career-launching race and more a career-confirming one.

Every stage winner this year, and indeed last year, was on a WorldTour development squad, and most already have their spot in the WorldTour secured for 2027. This is no longer the race to spot talent at – if riders are winning here, they've already proved themselves well before the Tour de l'Avenir.

All that said, it is still a really good and important race, and Finn's victory just confirms even more what a talent he is, and that he will be a force to be reckoned with when he steps up to Red Bull's WorldTour programme in January.

Other results:

• Nicolas Milesi (Ineos Grenadiers Racing Academy) won the Gran Premio Sportivi di Poggiana - Trofeo Bonin Costruzioni (1.2U)
• Jan Michal Jackowiak (Bahrain Victorious Development Team) won the GP Capodarco Comunita di Capodarco (1.2U)
• Václav Ježek (Kasper crypto4me) won the West Bohemia Tour (2.2U)

Talent radar

Alejandra Neira

Rather than pick out a Tour de l'Avenir rider who is certainly already on everyone's radars, I wanted to go a little bit deeper for this month's talent radar. My pick this month for a rider you should keep an eye on is Spain's Alejandra Neira who has been tearing up the women's junior calendar, particularly the harder, climb-heavy races, and secured herself a contract with Movistar through to the end of 2029. She's currently stagiairing for them, so expect her to make some appearances in some bigger races this season. She'll also be a big threat at the World Championships, trying to follow in Paula Ostiz's footsteps.

Down under digest

The biggest Aussie news of August came in mountain biking, rather than the road, when Connor Wright won the junior XCO race at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Val di Sole. Coming from Australia, a nation with relatively little support for MTB riders, especially compared to the riders he was up against, this was a huge win for Wright and Australia in general.

But make no mistake, this isn't just an off-road story – Wright is a huge road talent, too. After winning the final stage of the Tour of Tasmania, he's been racing in Europe since April, partly for the Australian national squad and partly for a Dutch club team, and he's secured wins in France and Slovakia, plus third overall at the Junioren Rundfahrt.

He's off to Tudor Pro Cycling's under-23 development squad for 2027, so his talent has definitely been spotted, and he should be on your radar, too.

Australian riders had a pretty low-key Tour de l'Avenir – there were no New Zealand starters – with Jack Ward the best performer, 12th twice and 38th overall for Lidl-Trek Future Racing. Nations like Australia and New Zealand are definitely among the more heavily affected by the move to trade teams, which naturally favour more European riders and mean we'll see fewer riders from nations like these in the race. It places much more pressure on these riders to get spots on trade teams, and takes away the chance to race via their national federation, which is unfortunate to see.

The big question going forward regarding New Zealand is whether we're going to see any under-23 or junior riders at the World Championships. Riders often get fairly minimal support from Cycling New Zealand, often having to self-fund at least part of their trip, so participation is sometimes low. Redmond Connolly and Nate Pringle were the only under-23 representatives, men or women, to race in Kigali, with Pringle scoring silver in the TT, so he'll be hopeful of racing in Montreal. Connolly could also be a good shout as he has been racing in the US this summer.

All about the Americas

The best-performing riders from North and South America in Tour de l'Avenir were Mateo Ramírez (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z) in fourth and Henrique Bravo (Soudal Quick-Step Devo) in fifth. For Ramírez, fourth may have felt like a bit of a disappointment given he was second at the Giro Next Gen, and perhaps similar for Bravo as he won the Giro delle Valle d'Aosta and came third at the Giro Next Gen.

However, both results were really big ones, especially for Bravo from a really under-represented cycling nation in Brazil. He's been impressing all season, and will surely be flying the Brazilian flag in the WorldTour peloton soon, though Pinarello-Q36.5 are interested in his signature, too. We interviewed him earlier this year if you want to find out more about him.

Over in North America, the highlight of August was definitely the return of the Philadelphia Cycling Classic, where under-23 riders from teams like Meridian Racing p/b de la Uz, Competitive Edge Racing and Virginia's Blue Ridge-TWENTY28 got to rub shoulders with WorldTour riders. 20-year-old Ella Sabo hugely impressed with third in the women's race, a result which – paired with her solid ride for Team USA at the Tour de Pologne – surely will have put her on some big teams' radars.

Transfers

Here are some of the most notable under-23 transfers you should know about this month:

• Anja Grossmann → FDJ United-Suez – The French team snaps up the newly-crowned junior XCO world champion
• Niels Driesen → Pinarello-Q36.5 – Quite a coup, ProTeam Pinarello have lured Driesen away from the Lotto development team and a spot on a WorldTour team
• Héctor Alvarez → Lidl-Trek (development team graduate)
• Seth Dunwoody → Bahrain Victorious (development team graduate)
• Gavin Sherry → EF Education-EasyPost (development team graduate)

Visit our transfer index for all the latest moves.

Up next

There are a couple of road races coming up on the men's under-23 circuit – the Giro della Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia stage race kicks off on Thursday, and the Flanders Tomorrow Tour on Friday – but the main focus now will be on the Road World Championships and the age category road races and TTs in Montréal.

Because he's still only 19, Lorenzo Finn will be a pretty big favourite to repeat his title in the under-23 men's road race, and possibly the time trial as well, although the race against the clock is likely a lot more open. Fresh off of eighth overall in the Tour de France Femmes, home favourite Isabella Holmgren will be aiming big in the women's under-23 events, and could bring home a big win – or two – for Canada.

We'll have full previews of the contenders for the under-23 and junior races throughout the World Championships, plus news and interviews from our team on the ground, so stick around for more under-23 coverage in September.

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