Cycling, Lorenzo Finn, English half already phenomenon at 18 years old

When you take off your helmet, you suddenly remember that Lorenzo Mark Finn is only eighteen. As it runs, how he moves, how he behaves with teammates and opponents (all bigger than him), you would say it much older. Spaldo, exaggerated, almost theatrical in the running, the Under 23 World Champion has cultivated his personality in a family of engineers, made up of mom Chiara Iperti, Ligurian, and dad Peter Finn, English of Sheffield. Sheffield, where Vincenzo Nibali wore the first yellow jersey at the 2014 tour. The Finn live in Salto, a hamlet of Avegno, above Recco. “Dagger Finn”, is still written on the asphalt in front of their home. No English, only Ligurian dialect. Lorenzo played football in the San Bernardino team. Plan B was tennis. Then he hurt one knee, so one day Dad Peter took him behind by bicycle, and the hierarchies began to change. Lollo began to run late, in 2019, with the Camogli bike. It was so far from the world of cycling that at the first race she had not brought the nurse’s pins, she did not know that they served to attack the ridge on the back. “As a newcomer I also struggled because I did not train much, I was not yet developed and there is a great disparity of physicists. As a pupil with the new Arma-Team Ballerini cycling I messed up and the results began to arrive”.

Two years ago the turning point

–

The turning point is 2023, among the Juniores: Finn runs for the CPS Professional Team and gets the first important victories. In April the first success in the province of Arezzo, then the Sandrigo-Monte Corno, the Cene-Altino history, the Pian Camuno-Montecampione and the Collegno-Sestriere. Always the same script: at a certain point Lorenzo leaves the others there and leaves alone. “I prefer not to get to the sprint. I am brought for the climb, the hard races, from racing in stages, the dream is a day at the start of the Tour de France, the most important race in the world, win a stage and in general to test myself in the big laps. But there is time”. Also in 2023, at the Giro della Lunigiana, Paul Seixas came second behind the Frenchman, another unreal talent. In the final stage, that of Terre di Luni, won by beating the climbing record of Montemarcello by 16 seconds, which was from Remco Evenepoel and dated back to 2018. Without making a turn. “Did I beat the record of Evenepoel? We didn’t run slowly, but it is also true that every race is in itself. It is certainly a good sign.” From there he was all … climbing. Aura as a predestined, in 2024 Lorenzo was the first seventeen year old Italian to go to run in a foreign training, the Grenke-Auto Eder team, which is the Bora nursery. “From Under it is now normal to go away from Italy, if you can do it so much before in my opinion. I find myself in a nice group, let’s talk all English well so we have no communication problems and being only in eight runners we are even more united than other formations”. After the scientific maturity (obviously) to the Leonardo da Vinci in Genoa, at the end of a happy school path such as the career on bike, this year Lorenzo would have had the opportunity to pass directly professional, jumping the under 23 category equal, but he did not want to force the stages and preferred to give himself time to grow without pressure. A year ago, in Zurich, he had won the World Cup among the Juniores, and say his companions that this morning he was not happy to have to abandon that beautiful rainbow shirt. A few hours later he put another one: he was the youngest at the start, he waited at all at the finish.

In the Rogla Cantera

–

In this first season with the Rookies, the Devi Bull Bora-Hansgrohe Devent Team, Lorenzo alternated with competitions among the under 23 with appearances among the professionals. In the flagship he found Cesare Benedetti, debut as a sports director. At the end of February the clavicle in training broke, but it was not broken down much. At the end of June, at the round of the Apennines, a fall caused him another fracture of the clavicle, forcing him to skip the Italian championships. On the other hand, he won the Belvedere, he arrived according to Recioto and Flèche Ardennaise, fifth at Liège Under 23, sixth at the NEXT Gen Giro after a fall in the third stage that conditioned him a lot and fourth at the Tour of the Avenir, a few seconds from the podium. At the World Cup came with a stellar shape, after the kilometers put in the legs running with the professionals Memorial Pantani and Matteotti Trophy.

Complete as the idol “G”

–

When you are eighteen, your world is still small. At Lollo’s parties there is the whole country, including the teacher of the nest, Mimma, and the first coach, Andrea Manitto, who went to the scooter in the tigullio from Genoa to follow his boyfriend. “When I realized that it was stronger uphill that I understood that it would become a champion in the plains. He has impressive recovery skills.” His climbs of the heart are Bocchetta, Madonna della Guardia and Busalla, in its parts. His model is Geraint Thomas, because “he is very intelligent”, and also goes from the parts of the heart. Lollo goes strong uphill, is good for a stopwatch, has an excellent recovery: the federal president Cordiano Dagnoni is not afraid to unbalance himself and says that Lorenzo “is the future of Italian cycling”. He only lacks the speed, but in these cases there is a very simple trick: just arrive alone, as Finn did in Kigali.