New Zealand rider Finn Fisher-Black has said there's no change this year to the NZ Cycling Federation's policy of not funding their elite riders' costs at the upcoming Road World Championships, with the 24-year-old and other elite pros paying their way to Canada to participate.
Following a second place in the Tour de Pologne, Fisher-Black has just completed a Vuelta a España, having supported team leader Primož Roglič throughout the three weeks while finishing in 52nd place himself.
Speaking during the race to Cyclingnews, Fisher-Black said he was looking forward to his third elite Road World Championships participation and hoping that he might be in the running for a top ten place in the elite men's road race.
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However, while New Zealand's elite men's side will be six strong and the elite women's team will have four riders in their line-up, Fisher-Black pointed out that the lack of funding had not changed despite his sister Niamh, a racer with Lidl-Trek, taking silver in the Worlds last year.
'It is a condition of selection that riders must fund themselves to attend and compete at the 2026 UCI Road World Championships,' reads Cycling New Zealand's Worlds selection criteria document.
The lack of funds created a "strange dynamic," Fisher-Black said, and meant that riders were acting more self-interestedly as a result, although personal friendships did reduce any potential friction.
"It's a strange dynamic for NZ because we don't get funding from Cycling New Zealand; we all pay to be there, so it's also a strange dynamic, like we all kind of also want to do our own race," Fisher-Black told Cyclingnews.
"But we're all good mates from New Zealand so it'll probably be about looking each other during the race and try to have numbers during the final and take it from there.
The lack of funding for the Kiwi road squad was first reported in 2022, and it would appear there has been no change in the New Zealand federation's policy of putting all available expenditure elsewhere since then. Much of the available budget, according to Fisher-Black, goes on the track team.
"It came in a few years ago, like, pretty much when I started doing the elite Worlds, they stopped the funding. It's just the structure of Cycling New Zealand because they prioritise the track and the road; there's no funding.
"We also do what we can, my sister [Niamh] was second last year [in the elite women's road race] so you'd think there'd maybe be some change, but for the moment it's the same.
"We have to do it like that, and we're fortunate that for the rest of the year we have a lot of support from our teams."
Fisher-Black is part of a six-man elite men's squad with the most experienced racer, George Bennett (NSN), whose best result was 18th a few years back. The other four are debutants Josh Kench (Groupama-FDJ United) and Ben Oliver (Modern Adventure), while Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Corbin Strong (NSN) have one participation at senior level.
Fisher-Black himself is looking to see how he feels after the Vuelta, where he was one of the most active elements in Roglič's squad in the mountains and on the flat, culminating in a long break on the final day through the Sierra Nevada last Saturday.
"In some ways, it's been a big training camp here, and I hope I come out well," Fisher-Black said during the race's second week.
"A lot of the time coming through a Grand Tour, your body feels a bit cooked, and as soon as it stops, your body shuts down. So I'll try to keep the body ticking over a bit and then go on to the Worlds where we'll have a good race there. We'll have a strong team."
His own goals in the Montreal hilly circuit – the kind of terrain where he's shone in the past – are to follow the wheeltracks of retired fastman Julian Dean, the only elite men's racer from New Zealand to break into the top ten at the road worlds this side of 2000 with a ninth and a tenth place to his name.
"I'd love to go there and be fighting for the top 10," Fisher-Black said. "It'd be nice just to be in the final."
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