ARA Australian Cycling Team selected for men's Tour de l'Avenir

AusCycling has announced the ARA Australian Cycling Team for the men’s 2024 Tour de l’Avenir.

The six-rider squad will contest the premier stage race for under-23 men, which this year runs from 18–24 August in the east of France and north-west of Italy.

Alastair Mackellar and Zachary Marriage return after participating in the 2023 edition of the ‘Race of the Future’, which is traditionally a proving ground for cycling’s next generation.

They will be joined by Fergus Browning, who is the Australian road race champion, and Luke Tuckwell, who showed his stage race prowess this season by finishing 10^th overall at the Giro d’Italia Next Gen.

Rounding out the squad are Matthew Greenwood – runner-up at both the national and Oceania road race championships – and Queensland’s Declan Trezise, an exciting sprinter with wins at National Road Series and UCI level.

This year’s Tour de l’Avenir will be the 60^th edition of an event that has crowned champions such as Tadej Pogacar, Egan Bernal and, most recently, WorldTour stage winner Isaac Del Toro.

The prologue and six road stages present an especially hilly parcours: billed by organisers as “100% mountain”, it will finish on the notorious, unpaved Colle delle Finestre in the Italian Alps.

The ARA Australian Cycling Team’s participation in the 2024 Tour de l’Avenir and Tour de l’Avenir Femmes has been made possible by support from Commonwealth Games Australia's Green2Gold2Great funding.

“The Tour de l’Avenir is viewed as the most important race for under-23 riders besides the World Championships," said Donna Rae-Szalinski, AusCycling’s Director of Pathways. “It is a pivotal opportunity for our pathway athletes to showcase their performance on a global scale.

"We are grateful to CGA for their support in this process, with the under-23 cohort being potential contenders to represent Australia in the 2026 Commonwealth Games.”

Craig Phillips AM, CEO of Commonwealth Games Australia, said, “CGA looks forward to continuing the work with sports and high-performance partners at the AIS, the Australian Olympic Committee, Paralympics Australia and State and Territory Institutes of Sport to ensure the best possible preparation for Australian athletes to compete.”

ARA Australian Cycling Team for 2024 Tour de l’Avenir:

• Fergus Browning (Trinity Racing, Hawthorn CC, 20)
• Matthew Greenwood (Team BridgeLane, Hamilton Wheelers CC, 21)
• Alastair Mackellar (Hagens Berman Jayco, Sunshine Coast CC, 22)
• Zachary Marriage (Team BridgeLane, Kilkenny CC, 20)
• Declan Trezise (ARA Skip Capital, University of Queensland CC, 22)
• Luke Tuckwell (Trinity Racing, Bathurst CC, 20)

Photo: Pauline Ballet / SWpix.com