Grand Prix du Morbihan, Tro-Bro Leon, PostNord Tour of Denmark and Arctic Race of Norway are all races that, belonging to the ProSeries calendar, represent stages of considerable prestige, especially for a Continental team that, in its second year of life, had never experienced them before. The team in question, and to anyone who has followed these races with attention, it certainly will not have escaped, is the Lucky Sport Cycling Team, a team that, partly because it flies the flag of a country relegated to the margins of major cycling (Sweden), partly for its team colors (yellow-violet) and partly for the competitive contexts in which it has found itself performing, in this 2026 has carved out attention and space that have not gone unnoticed.
It is not often, in fact, that a team of such young constitution belonging to the third world level manages to take part, after a year of consolidation that saw it engaged in just one pro race, in as many as four (it will become five with participation in the Tour of Britain) competitions of the second international calendar consistently putting on display its jersey and its name in such important circumstances. The credit for all this is largely due to the ambition of Oskar Ekman and his son Erik embraced with conviction by the main Swedish sports betting and online casino platform Lucky Casino (controlled along with other similar entities worldwide by the Maltese company Glitnor) which, animated by the desire to "invest its funds in sport and position itself in the right light," has guaranteed them the necessary support to transform into solid reality a project whose foundations were laid six years ago.
"We started the team activity in 2024, but I would say that the foundations were laid in 2020 when my father, with whom I now manage the team, and I founded the Svealand Cycling Team, a development team for girls and boys in the U17, U19 and U23 categories from all over Sweden," Erik Ekman recently told us in Norway.
"With this team, for example, we signed cyclists like Jakob Söderqvist, who later became U23 time trial world champion. Everything started from there. Then, in 2024, we told ourselves it was time to launch the Lucky Sport project, so in 2025 we obtained the license and, starting last summer, I began working on it full-time. The idea, in short, is the fruit of six years of work in the cycling world and practice of this sport since I myself raced until the junior level," continued the co-founder of the Swedish team before admitting how, given their area of origin, they have a specific point of reference.
"Obviously we look at what Uno-X has done and we try to follow in their footsteps, seeking to replicate what worked in their case (such as, for example, basing ourselves in Belgium for certain periods) but also adding our personal touch."
This singularity lies, for example, in the mentality and aggressiveness with which the 17 riders on the roster (three Norwegians, two Estonians, one Finn, ten Swedes and, a story within a story, twenty-seven-year-old Amir Ansari, Iranian by birth but resident in Sweden since 2015 and currently holding refugee status) have interpreted and continue to interpret the races in which they are called to perform in the Scandinavian team's jersey, a representative that, to revive Swedish cycling, does not want to close its doors to anyone.
"From the start we embraced the mantra "everything is possible." We want to try to push the limits of current cycling a bit further, race all competitions with this mindset and try to truly bring Swedish cycling back to the level of 30 or 40 years ago when the movement boasted many cyclists, many teams and great champions capable of winning. All this with a Nordic team that, however, wants to be and remains open to everyone: if a Belgian, Italian or Spanish cyclist comes along who wants to race with us, we are ready to welcome him. This is because we don't just look at the talent or abilities of the guys but especially at their mentality: we want guys eager to race for this team and really give their all and so far everyone involved in the project has demonstrated this very well, committing 100%. None of them have a high-level background: we have two guys who were previously part of development teams, but apart from that nothing else."
Having engaged guys willing to fully embrace his cause, the team then set to work to give them the opportunity to measure themselves against a calendar and first-level opponents, a sine qua non condition this to allow them to explore their limits, rough out their engine and refine their race tactics and understanding. This operation required time, considerable diplomacy and much conviction, but in the end it certainly bore fruit.
"When I started seriously dealing with the sporting side last summer, I asked myself: 'Why do we race these events?' So I started calling everyone I knew saying 'Let us participate, we'll do our best and prove we deserve to stay here.' I therefore contacted various organizers telling everyone with great honesty our story, our vision (elements that I believe are very important these days), the fact that we are a Nordic team trying to do something new involving the entire region and that we are very young. I, for example, am only 22 years old and I believe that this, the fact that we have many years ahead of us, can be interesting for those who come into contact with us. It is in this way that we managed to send the team to Belgium (where there are very solid organizational structures and every race is followed with attention) and to have the guys race with professionals doing what is expected of a Continental team like ours, that is going on the attack for example," explained the young scion of the Ekman family who, from the moment he took over the team car at the beginning of the year, immediately sought to have his athletes race without any fear.
"Sometimes we found ourselves facing some of the biggest teams of all, but what I always told the guys is to not be afraid, not to look at them as organizations bigger than us, but to try to be on equal footing and do our work following what are our plans which are often very bold. We don't shy away from organizing a train to set up sprints or approach the most important sections of a course: even if the guys perhaps aren't strong enough yet, by behaving this way, they will grow and we are confident we can race very well as a team."
This modus currendi allowed Lucky Sport Cycling Team to animate in the same way every event it participated in, from .2 races to ProSeries events, moving with the clear intention to race and play a leading role rather than suffer through it. This approach ended up impacting directly, beyond the recognition of its riders and results (28 top-ten finishes achieved so far with victories at the Finnish national road championships and Estonian time trial championships), on the overall visibility of the team whose plans for the future are already well outlined.
"In the team we have very clear ideas about what we want to do. We have a project through 2035, but thanks to all our sponsors we try every year to double the team's budget, which is clearly not easy at all," Ekman revealed.
"We told ourselves that in 2035, therefore on the tenth anniversary of the team's founding, we want to be at the Tour de France and between 2030 and 2032 become a ProTeam but things are going much faster: this year in fact we realized we can do much more and much faster than we expected so we moved the goal of becoming a pro team to 2029. We appeared on Swedish media to explain to people how much this operation costs and we estimate creating a ProTeam with a budget of seven million euros. From this point of view we certainly still have a long way to go, but it's not an impossible target: we are working hard behind the scenes to bring together the sponsors who support us and increase the value of the team so we can really get the support we need, we are making a documentary about the team for HBO and Eurosport, we are very careful about marketing... in short we are doing all those little things that sometimes, in my opinion, many teams neglect."
This of course is not distracting the team's staff, substantial for a Continental, from providing adequate support to the guys signed for this season who, according to Ekman, make up a roster "very versatile whose particularity lies in the fact that everyone is strong at roughly the same level." Within it, however, there is a profile that by age and characteristics, according to his own sports director, is worth watching closely as it possesses the qualities to be the next big revelation of Swedish cycling: Teodor De Luca.
Born in 2006, as his surname suggests, the native of Malmö has clear Italian origins: his grandfather, who moved to Sweden (where he then met his future wife and Teodor's grandmother) to study dentistry, was born in our country and still lives here, about an hour from Rome, together with the aunt and two cousins of the young Swede.
"He is a rider who will be really fun to follow. So far he hasn't raced much: he stopped cycling two years ago, then found the energy to start again and now he's with us. He is very strong and has a great future ahead of him, provided he can hold on mentally, the hardest obstacle, I believe, for most cyclists. We, however, both with the Sveland program and as Lucky Sport Cycling Team, offer a really excellent path to make the jump and, even if perhaps some won't make it, we are trying to help everyone with the goal of pushing them towards a professional or world-level team. In this sense we are really inspiring many young people."
Words and mission very similar to those of another Continental team much better known to us, the Swatt Club, which the guys in yellow-violet found themselves crossing paths with on more than one occasion this year.
"Swatt Club is a team I had already noticed last year and I believe they have had a similar path to what we are having. Today, however, they are a bigger reality than ours in all respects, especially if we think about how long they have been in the cycling world and how they have made themselves known," Ekman agreed. "They are really a beautiful team, I spoke with them in Denmark, and few can boast that level in the Continental world: their presence certainly helps raise the quality in the category. I think we met them for the first time in the Netherlands, at the Olympia's Tour, and what they were doing was simply always give everything they had: that's exactly how you have to race, without fear," emphasized the young Swedish sports director who, regarding similarities with Carlo Beretta's team, certainly didn't hold back from employing his men not only on road but also in off-road competitions.
"Last year we participated in the Cykelvasan, which is the largest mountain bike race in the entire Nordic region, and it was an excellent opportunity to make ourselves known because the race is broadcast live by Swedish television but, it seems, also on the state television channels of Norway and Finland so it represented an excellent showcase to display our colors," Ekman clarified, ready shortly to double his efforts to try to shine in other environments. "This winter we will also race in cyclocross: Vilmer Ekman is indeed an excellent cyclocrosser and after the Arctic Race will begin to focus on the mud season. Last year with him we participated in four races, this year we want to fully focus on this discipline too having all the means to support him best. The goal of all this is to be able to give the team visibility throughout the year: from this point of view, cyclocross opens infinite possibilities and presents really fun races."
Visibility then and not the much-discussed and coveted UCI points behind which more and more teams, especially at higher levels, race with the goal of improving or defending their license.
"If we raced for points, we would have to participate in different races than the ones we are doing. No, points are not our priority as a team right now. What we want instead is to grow and prove we can race at a high level because that's where we can learn important things. We couldn't do that by participating in races at our level where we could win. This is the main objective and it's what, for example, pushed us to say 'no' to some races and modify our programs."
In these, after the missed invitation to the last Giro Next Gen, there will be no Italian races as the team, to conclude a season already today absolutely significant, will split between the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Slovakia and Belgium. To see the Swedish team in action on our soil, therefore, we will have to wait at least until next year, a season in which it is not excluded that Lucky Sport Cycling Team could boast the presence of a tricolor representative within it.
"We don't exclude anything because, I repeat, what matters is who the riders are as people. We have a Nordic mentality, but that doesn't mean Italian cyclists can't have the same mentality so we'll see what happens in the future. Anyone is free to send me a message," concluded Ekman, whose phone, especially after this statement, is likely to ring quite a bit in the coming months.
Photo credit: ARN/Thomas Maheux, Lucky Sport Cycling Team, Alexis Dancerelle
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