{"id":181886,"date":"2025-10-01T06:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T06:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181886\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T06:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T06:21:11","slug":"ef-education-easypost-signs-top-italian-talent-for-the-long-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181886\/","title":{"rendered":"EF Education-EasyPost signs top Italian talent “for the long term”"},"content":{"rendered":"

EF Education-EasyPost<\/a> has announced a new rider. And not just any rider: Mattia Agostinacchio. This 18-year-old Italian is already the junior world champion in cyclo-cross and has also shown great promise on the road. Despite his young age, comparisons have already been made with Mathieu van der Poel. In the press release, the rider himself explains why.<\/p>\n

Agostinacchio won almost everything in cyclo-cross last season, including the world championship in Li\u00e9vin, France. The young talent is also successful on the road. The rider from Aosta won a stage in the prestigious Troph\u00e9e Centre Morbihan (2.Ncup) and finished fourth in the Trofeo Emilio Paganessi.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Vaughters<\/a>, CEO of EF Pro Cycling, has been following Mattia’s progress for some time, according to the team website<\/a>. \u201cThis kid is crazy intelligent. He learned English from YouTube and TikTok, and that impressed me. The second thing that impressed me was that when I met and had dinner with his entire family, I got to know his background.\u201d<\/p>\n

Text continues below<\/p>\n

\"Mattia<\/p>\n

At the World Junior Time Trial Championships in Rwanda, Agostinacchio finished ninth.<\/p>\n

CEO Jonathan Vaughters immediately noticed something about Agostinacchio<\/p>\n

Vaughters also talks about the specific strengths of his new signing. \u201cWhen it comes to watching Mattia race, the first thing that stood out to me was the way in which he wins races. In cyclo-cross, his skill is that he can pick one climb, or one moment, and just be massively explosive for two minutes and create a gap, and that gap never comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n

And according to the team boss, that is what makes him a good road rider. \u201cThat super explosive power, lasting 45 seconds to two minutes, is something that not many riders possess. It\u2019s natural and really hard to train. You\u2019ve either got it or you don\u2019t, and in modern cycling, that\u2019s how you win races, by creating that separation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Text continues below<\/p>\n

\"MattiaAgostinacchio will be riding for EF Education-EasyPost this winter<\/p>\n

Agostinacchio will already be competing for his new team this year, in the field. He will be doing so for the team’s new cyclo-cross project, which will be announced shortly. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to push on him too hard, so he will race on the development team, but he\u2019ll also race as part of the WorldTour squad,\u201d said Vaughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere and there, we\u2019ll put him into a few WorldTour races, just to start learning. We won\u2019t overcook him, but when we can, and when we think he\u2019s ready, we\u2019ll race him up on the WorldTour team so that he can gain that vital experience. The sooner he understands how races like the Tour of Flanders or Amstel Gold work, the sooner he can start finding success in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Text continues below<\/p>\n

\"mattia<\/p>\n

Mattia Agostinacchio won the World Junior Cyclo-cross Championship in early 2025.<\/p>\n

Agostinacchio is already being compared to Mathieu van der Poel<\/p>\n

Agostinacchio is described as an all-rounder: before his road career and successes in the field, the young talent was a mountain biker. In his own country, the Italian is compared to Mathieu van der Poel. \u201cGrowing up, I was a big fan of Mathieu van der Poel. Lots of people say I look like him, but I really don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the bike, people also compare me with him, but honestly, if I could be anything like him as a rider I\u2019d be super happy. We\u2019ll have to see in the future. In the short term, I\u2019m just looking forward to meeting my new teammates and wearing the EF Education-EasyPost kit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that EF Education-EasyPost is going to be the perfect team for me. It\u2019s a good team for young riders to join because I think they are very strong when it comes to rider development. I had conversations with Jonathan Vaughters in the spring, and he made a very good impression. I genuinely believe that I\u2019ll learn a lot from the team and become a better rider.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EF Education-EasyPost has announced a new rider. And not just any rider: Mattia Agostinacchio. This 18-year-old Italian is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-181886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}