The wait is over. The big day has arrived for Laives, which today and tomorrow will crown the new Italian champions in road cycling for Junior and Youth categories. The best young talent in Italian cycling, a total of 760 boys and girls aged 13 to 16, will compete for the six tricolour jerseys at stake, thanks to the organization of Polisportiva Libertas Laives, headed by president Paolo Endrizzi.

The first day of the event will be entirely dedicated to the women's categories: opening the proceedings at 9 in the morning will be the Junior Women 1st year category, called to compete over a distance of 35.4 kilometers, while the race reserved for Junior Women 2nd year will start at 10:30 and will cover 53.2 kilometers.

In the afternoon at 3 p.m., finally, the race reserved for the Youth category will start, covering a total of 71 kilometers. The three races, which will have their start and finish on Via Pietralba, will develop over two circuits, largely mirrored, with the exception of the climb that will represent the distinctive feature of the course, a 650-meter ascent with double-digit gradients in the second part and peaks of 14%. A difficulty that the Youth riders will face five times, the Junior Women 2nd year twice, the Junior Women 1st year only once.

Among the Junior class of 2013, the great favorite on paper is Beatrice Di Pardo from San Giovanni in Marignano in Romagna, the most prolific winner of the 2026 season, already boasting nine victories. Also favored are the two Veneto riders from Unione Ciclistica Giorgione, Greta Mocellin and Gaia Basso, as well as Lazio's Giulia Buttarazzi, just to name some of the main candidates for the title.

The Junior Women 2nd year race, on the other hand, will have Carlotta Casarotti from Verona as the one to watch, she who last Sunday at Tre Ville (in Trentino) secured her twelfth victory of 2026. Competing for the crown will be, above all, Piedmont's Aurora Cerame (tricolour champion among Junior Women 1st year twelve months ago), Umbria's Alessandra Luna and Marche's Mya Dazzani, girls who boast six, five and four victories respectively so far this season.

The Youth category also has an open forecast: leading the way is Bergamo's Nina Marinini, with seven seasonal victories, followed closely by Romagna's Teodora Castelli (6 wins) and Brescia's Emma Cocca: the latter has collected five victories so far, one more than Piedmont's Nicole Bracco. The Laives course also suits the characteristics of the two Treviso riders Matilde Carretta and Giorgia Timis, who have won three times each in 2026 and are among the most credited in case of a sprint finish.

Carretta, moreover, was already capable of winning at Laives, where in 2023 a stage of the Triveneto Championship took place: the Veneto rider won solo among the Juniors (ahead of Jolanda Sambi and Giorgia Nervo), while among the Youth the winning move came from Azzurra Ballan, a rider with a famous cycling pedigree, who was joined on the podium by Chantal Pegolo and Matilde Rossignoli. Names that serve as a guarantee for the race course of the 2026 tricolour championship.

At the end of the women's races that will award the Italian championship titles, also worth noting is the appointment with the parade of Committee Representatives, which will color the streets of Laives' center starting at 6:45 p.m., with arrival at the new Piazza Municipio.