Lorenzo Mark Finn’s introduction to the world of top-level cycling at the 2026 World Championships

Everything is new, although nothing really is. Certainly the setting: Montréal, Canada. Not the context: the World Cycling Championships. Yet even this has changed somewhat, at least in terms of category. Lorenzo Mark Finn will be competing in his third World Cycling Championships, but two days later than he might otherwise have done. No longer among the Juniors, as he was two years ago, when he wore the rainbow jersey but was unable to wear it the following season due to moving up a category. No longer among the Under-23s, as he did a year ago, when he won his second World Championship in a row. Lorenzo Mark Finn will be competing in the Elite category. Riding alongside him will be champions and established top riders: Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen and Tom Pidcock. Alongside him will be champions and talented riders poised to become champions: Isaac Del Toro, Paul Seixas, Luke Tuckwell and Jørgen Nordhagen. He will be the youngest rider on the start line: 19 years and 282 days old.

Until a few years ago, no one would have even dreamt of fielding a runner not yet twenty years old in professional races. Times have changed, however, and the age of entry has been brought forward. For some time now, Under-23s have been thinking and preparing more like professionals than amateurs. This is happening almost everywhere, with the exception of Italy, where there is still a belief that one must wait, pace oneself and take things slowly. Something is changing on the peninsula too. Not least because our talented riders are going abroad to race, and abroad they are brought through the ranks sooner, become men sooner, and are not considered ‘boys’ until they are thirty. In 2024, Lorenzo Mark Finn joined Team GRENKE – Auto Eder, the youth team of the former BORA-hansgrohe, now Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. Last year, he moved up to their development squad. Next year, he will make his professional debut as a full-fledged professional.

In between, there’s a World Championship to compete in for the national team. Nobody’s expecting anything of them; others will be the captains, whilst Giulio Ciccone, Giulio Pellizzari and Davide Piganzoli will be aiming for a place on the podium. Can they do it? It’s a long shot, but in Montréal it’ll be a tricky race – and, most likely, an unpredictable one.

Lorenzo Mark Finn, however, will be right there alongside them. The hope is that he will be as close to them as possible. Team manager Elia Viviani and head coach Roberto Amadio preferred to have him in the team: ‘It’s better that he learns straight away,’ they told themselves. Does it make sense to take things slowly in a sport that is accelerating? Watching Paul Seixas race, the answer is no. And this is a step forward for Italian cycling – a step forward that is by no means a foregone conclusion.

This year, Lorenzo Mark Finn won the Giro d’Italia U23 and the Tour de l’Avenir, the two most important stage races in U23 cycling. He did so whilst wearing the rainbow jersey – the one that either makes everything feel lighter or weighs down your legs like a twenty-kilo lead weight. In some races he has competed alongside the professionals; it hasn’t always gone well, but he took victory in the Sibiu Tour (a gruelling Romanian stage race) and showed promise in the Tour of the Alps before withdrawing.

Now everything is new, although nothing really is. The bikes are still the same, as is the rainbow you see everywhere. It is the legs pushing the pedals that have changed; the names and class of the contenders are what have changed irrevocably. Lorenzo Mark Finn sees all this and flashes a smile that is part embarrassed, part cheeky. He’d always dreamt of being there. He wanted nothing more, and he is determined to demonstrate that this is where he belongs.

And Amadio and Viviani were right to bring him to Montréal. He won’t get another chance like this – to race freely with the best possible excuse to justify it if things don’t go well: ‘I’m not even twenty yet’. An excuse that is, at the same time, a spur: ‘I’m not even twenty yet and I’m here, where I’ve always dreamed of being’. Cycling can be a dream.