The first races of the season have arrived, Europe is about to wear its traditional clothes as the reference continent for the world of two wheels, and therefore there couldn't be a better time to discover the new forces of Italian cycling. We propose a stage-by-stage journey to discover the new faces of our movement: we will talk about neo-professionals, riders who have landed in the development teams of major squads, Italian Continental teams, and our guys racing around the world. Are you ready? Let's start and... pedal with us!

THIRD EPISODE - OUR CONTINENTAL TEAMS

Continental Universe, a vast sea where vessels of development teams from major squads and small boats from countries that have written few pages in cycling history navigate together. Among the sailors of these boats, there are young talents attracted by the sirens of turning professional, former pros seeking a comeback, honest pedal workers, track or off-road specialists, representatives of realities that practically never appear in the big spotlight of two wheels.

In this sea, which hosts hundreds of teams (as of January 30th, the UCI website registers 138, but many countries are still missing, reasonably at least thirty teams are absent), there are also 11 Italian formations. One less compared to the past season and there has been a significant turnover: Zalf Euromobil Désirée Fior and Q36.5 Continental have ceased activities, Rime Drali has stepped back to the amateur ranks, CTF Friuli has merged into Team Bahrain Victorious, effectively becoming their nursery. The Emilian Beltrami TSA Tre Colli and Team Technipes #inEmiliaRomagna, the Lombard Biesse - Carrera - Premac and MBH Bank Ballan CSB, the Veneto General Store - Essegibi - F.Lli Curia and Sam - Vitalcare - Dynatek, the Marche-based Caffè Mokambo, and the Tuscan Mg.K Vis Costruzioni e Ambiente have confirmed their commitment. The new entries are the Tuscan Gragnano Sporting Club and the Veneto UC Trevigiani - Energiapura Marchiol - historic names in Italian amateur cycling that have decided to take the big step - and the other Veneto team, S.C. Padovani Polo Cherry Bank, which is entering the category with a completely new team and structure.

Active for years now, the Continental formations in Italy have not yet defined their status, forced to suffer the competition of major team nurseries in recruitment and too often anchored to the racing calendar in Italy from a competitive perspective. Foreign trips, for many teams, are occasional if not non-existent, and participation in major Under 23 events is truly sparse. Thus, opportunities for comparison and growth are lacking, especially considering that the Italian calendar offers few stage races, all concentrated in the second part of the season: suffice it to say that the guys from Italian Continental teams practically all arrive at Giro Next Gen, the most important event of the year, without having raced a single stage race. And when the moment of direct confrontation with athletes from foreign teams arrives, the difference is evident.

Too often for Italian Continental teams, being invited to some Italian professional race becomes a source of pride and honor, even if the results cannot be worthy of mention, for obvious reasons.

In 2024, eight guys from Italian Continental teams turned professional: Ermakov, Erzen, Skerl, and Van der Meulen from CTF Friuli all to Bahrain Victorious, Sergio Meris (to Unibet Tietema Rockets) and Florian Kajamini (to XdS Astana) from MBH Bank, Ludovico Crescioli from Technipes #InEmiliaRomagna to Team Polti VisitMalta, and Tommaso Nencini from Zalf Euromobil Fior to Solution Tech - Vini Fantini.

On paper, this year the most structured teams seem to be MBH Bank Ballan CSB and Biesse Carrera Premac: in the former, the spotlight is particularly on Diego Bracalente, Christian Bagatin, Lorenzo Nespoli, sprinters Edoardo Cipollini and Matteo Fiorin, and Manuel Oioli seeking his definitive breakthrough; in Biesse, the most anticipated are Nicolò Arrighetti, Federico Iacomoni, twins Gabriele and Tommaso Bessega, and newcomer Andrea Donati, brother of Davide who this year landed in the new nursery of Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe Rockets.

Among the most anticipated riders are also Domenico Cirlincione, Kevin Pezzo Rosola, and especially Danish rider Dennis Lock in General Store, Brescian Riccardo Perani in Trevigiani, Pole Adam Bronakowski, and former junior Italian champion Ivan Toselli, both in their first year, in Technipes. The other teams, on paper, appear a step below, but we'll be happy to be wrong and find ourselves applauding emerging new talents.

BELTRAMI TSA TRE COLLI
Atleti: Tommaso Anastasia (18) Andrea Biancalani (24), Nicolò D’Ales­sandro (18), Matteo Falchetti (19), Gabriel Fede (21), Pierluigi Gar­bi (18), Valentino Kamberaj (19, Alb), Frederyk Likke (20, Dan), Tho­mas Rigamonti (18), Leonardo Rossi (19), Giacomo Tagliavini (20), Raf­faele Tela (19).

BIESSE CARRERA PREMAC
Atleti: Filippo Agostinacchio (21), Nicolò Arrighetti (20), Gabriele Bes­sega (20), Tommaso Bessega (20), Michele Bicelli (18), Tommaso Dati (22), Andrea Godizzi (19), Etienne Gri­mod (19), Filip Gru­sz­czyn­ski (19, Pol), Federico Iacomoni (22), Luca Maggia (19), Ales­sandro Milesi (18), Davide Qua­driglia (18), Nicola Rossi (22), Cristian Sanfilippo (18).

CAFFE’ MOKAMBO
Atleti: Michele Carletti (19), Ignazio Cireddu (20), Riccardo Bion­dani (19), Federico De Paolis (19), Mattia Marcozzi (19), Andrea Mearelli (20), Cosma Rausa (20), Michele Daffini (19), Valerii Shtin (29, Rus), Ivan Taccone (19), Pietro Tintoni (18), Nicholas Tonioli (25).

GENERAL STORE F.LLI CURIA - ESSEGIBI
Atleti: Aklilu Arefayne (20, Eri), Kevin Biehl (21, Dan), Riccardo Bion­dani (19), Giovanni Bortoluzzi (22), Tommaso Bosio (18), Matteo Cet­tolin (20), Domenico Cirlincione (22), Michele Daffini (19), Thomas Gamba (18), Dennis Lock (22, Dan), Alessio Manghini (20), Diego Nem­brini (18), Kevin Pezzo Rosola (22), Cristian Remelli (18), Thomas Ros­setti (20).

GRAGNANO SPORTING CLUB
Atlete: Lorenzo Boschi (21), Davide Bufalini (18), Lorenzo Cataldo (25), Andrea Chiarucci (24), Piergiorgio Cozzani (20), Matteo Creatini (20), Andrea De Totto (25), Simone Lucca (24), Alessio Ninci (21), Mattia Piccini (21), Tommaso Rigatti (26), Fran­ce­sco Giairo Rossi (20).

MBH BANK BALLAN CSB
Atleti: Matteo Ambrosini (22) , Christian Bagatin (22), Zsombor Balogh (18, Ung), Diego Bracalente (20), Gabriele Casalini (20), Cesare Chesini (20), Edoardo Cipollini (19), Luca Cretti (23), Matteo Fiorin (19), Balint Makrai (18 Ung), Lorenzo Ma­sciarelli (21), Lorenzo Nespoli (20), Pavel Novak (20, R.Ceca), Ma­nuel Oioli (21), Samuel Quaranta (22), Enrico Simoni (18), Zsombor Takacs (19, Ung), Mark Valent (20, Ung), Bar­nabas Vas (18), Leonardo Vesco (19).

MG.K VIS COSTRUZIONI E AMBIENTE
Atleti: Matteo Bozicevich (21), An­drea Cantoni (24), Simone Carrò (24), Fabiano Faieta (19), Vittorio Friggi (19), Jacopo Gioia (19), Ben Granger (24, Gbr), Matthews King­ston (22, Gbr), Luca Laudi (18), Ciro Perez Alvarez (19 Uru), Matteo Spreafico (31).

SC PADOVANI POLO CHERRY BANK
Atleti: Matteo Baseggio (26), Davide Basso (20), Antonio Bonaldo (19), Kevin Bonaldo (24), Mirko Bozzola (20), Ares Costa (18), Luca Graziotto (19), Federico Guzzo (23), Samuele Mion (21), Marco Palomba (22), An­drea Scarso (19), Thomas Turri (18), Lorenzo Ursella (22), Mat­teo Zurlo (26).

SAM - VITALCARE - DYNATEK
Atleti: Negasi Ahylu Abreha (24, Eti), Stefano Baffi (26), Luca Collinelli (21), Filippo Dignani (23), Marco Fermanelli (21), Samuel Gualtieri (18), Marco Merola (18), Sebastiano Minoia (21), Angelo Monister (19), Andrea Nannini (18), Chrisian Danilo Pase (22), Samuele Scappini (19), Federico Vettore (18).

TEAM TECHNIPES #INEMILIAROMAGNA
Atleti: Tommaso Alunni (19), Ric­cardo Archetti (19), Luca Bagnara (21), Thomas Bolognesi (19), Sa­muele Bonetto (22), Adam Bro­na­kowski (18, Pol), Alessandro Cattani (19), Pietro Dapporto (19), Matteo Gabelloni (18), Luca Mar­tignano (22), Marco Martini (19), Leonardo Meccia (18), Filippo Omati (19), Ni­cholas Scarpelli (20), Pietro Sterbini (19), Ivan Toselli (18).

UC TREVIGIANI ENERGIAPURA MARCHIOL
Atleti: Tommaso Bambagioni (19), Tommaso Cafueri (19), Alessandro Da Ros (20), Marco Di Bernardo (20), Riccardo Fabbro (18), Tommaso Far­setti (19), Luca Fraticelli (19), Si­mone Griggion (21), Samuele Mas­solin (18), Raffaele Mosca (21), Ric­car­do Perani (21), Luca Rosa (20).

3 - to be continued