Do Race Results in Youth Competitions Predict Future Success as a Road Cyclist? A Retrospective Study in the Italian Cycling Federation

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between youth road cycling success and becoming a professional cyclist. Specifically, the authors sought to analyze (1) the differences in the success scores in youth categories between future professional (PRO) and future nonprofessional (NON-PRO) cyclists, (2) whether relative age effect influences youth road cycling career pathways, and (3) whether youth competition success could predict a future career as a professional cyclist. Methods: The number of points gathered in the annual national ranking of 1345 Italian cyclists in the U17, U19, and U23 categories were retrospectively analyzed. Participants were divided into 2 groups: PRO (n = 43) and future NON-PRO (n = 1302), depending on whether they reached the professional level. Results: PRO outperformed NON-PRO in all the youth categories considered (ie, U17, U19, and U23). Older cyclists within the same annual age group were not overrepresented in PRO and do not have an advantage over younger cyclists within all the competition years. The number of points gathered in youth competitions provides an indication of probability of becoming professional cyclists from U17 onward with the predictive value increasing with age category. Conclusions: Handling the transition to a new age group well (especially the U19–U23 transition), and therefore having success competing against older and more experienced cyclists, is an important factor for talent identification in youth cycling.

Tracking performance and its underlying characteristics in talented swimmers: a longitudinal study during the junior-to-senior transition

“…Moreover, it suggests that the development of swim performance becomes more stable during the late junior years (males aged 16–17; females aged 15–16), which is in line with previous work of Costa et al (2011) . As such, we state that the importance of performance level increases as swimmers approach their age of peak performance ( Allen and Hopkins, 2015 ), and that a high level of swim performance at late junior age (i.e., being on track), may be required to advance to the senior elite level, which was also observed in other individual sports like cycling ( Gallo et al, 2022 ; Mostaert et al, 2022 ). Additionally, we have found that not all high-performing juniors ended up as high-performing seniors.…”

Is Motor Coordination the Key to Success in Youth Cycling?

“…Within road cycling, competition results are frequently used as the main criterion to identify and select youth cyclists as potential cyclists [4][5][6] . For example, the predictive value of youth competition results from the U17, U19, and U23 category onwards was recently studied and confirmed, with the highest success rates reported in the second year of the categories [5][6][7] .…”

Uncovering Success Patterns in Track Cycling: Integrating Performance Data with Coaches and Athletes’ Perspectives

“…However, uncertainties persist when considering younger athletes in the junior category. Various studies have suggested a trend toward weaker predictive power in the very early categories, but stronger predictability as athletes approach the U-19 and U-23 categories [8,9,11]. In the context of talent identification in track cycling junior categories, expert coaches, athletes, and former athletes acknowledge the limitations of relying solely on publicly available UCI indicators, especially considering the increased opportunities for showcasing throughout the season offered by a denser competition calendar.…”

“…While the research focus has primarily centered on road and off-road cycling [8][9][10][11], the past two decades have witnessed numerous endeavors to explore and unveil the potential key factors influencing track cycling performance [2]. However, to date, little attention has been paid to characterizing the success rate of youth talent transitioning to the elite categories and elucidating the performance indicators that unveil their potential in the realm of track cycling [5].…”

“…While this study stands as a notable contribution [5], the majority of research on this topic has predominantly focused on road cycling. Within this context, the performance of youth cyclists, particularly starting from the junior category, has emerged as a promising indicator for predicting future success within the elite category of road cycling [8,9,11]. Furthermore, several hypotheses have been proposed regarding this topic, including the exploration of the potential influence of the relative age effect (RAE) or birthplace effect, which may confer advantages or disadvantages in achieving future success.…”