He will turn 36 next June 27th, ended his competitive career at the end of 2019, has devoted himself to art as a painter, to music as a DJ and to gravel cycling as a rider ready to have fun. But now Taylor Phinney has a new dream: to compete at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

It's not a joke, he hasn't returned to the velodrome just for the sake of it: it's a serious project. His return to gravel cycling gave him the spark, his wifeKasia Niewiadoma-Phinney gave him the motivation and today Phinney trains six hours a day on the track with the goal of earning a spot in the team pursuit quartet.

"I never would have imagined this would happen... but here we are" the American wrote on Instagram to announce his project, adding that "the old horse still has some fight left in him".

He calls it "COMEBACK3000" and admits that initially the Olympics idea wasn't really serious: "I laughed when it was proposed to me. But thanks to the encouragement from USA Cycling and the constant support of my wife, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, this thing stopped being a joke. And it simply became an objective".

A return to his roots since Phinney comes straight from the track, he was a specialist in individual pursuit, a discipline that - as we Italians know well - no longer has a place at the Olympics. But Phinney accepted the challenge, has returned to training in the gym, to studying the position that can no longer be the one from seven years ago when he was racing, and he discovered he performed better than expected in these first months of work that he's only been taking seriously since November.

The Olympics are a dream that passes through returning to racing, through World Cup events, through work with his national teammates and through a challenge to earn a spot. A very long road, perhaps an ambitious dream, but certainly a fascinating objective. And a challenge called LA.