For most riders, the off-season means rest. For Davide Stella, it means one final race, another flight, and a notebook full of lessons from an eleven-month campaign that has carried him across four continents.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old from Friuli, Italy, who began his year at the Al Salam Championship in the United Arab Emirates, will close his 2025 season at the Ghent Six Day later this month. Between those dates, the UAE Team Emirates – XRG<\/a> Gen Z talent collected early victories in Sharjah and Alentejo, pulled on a WorldTour jersey for the first time, and even lined up at the Track World Championships<\/a> in Santiago de Chile.\u201cThe Worlds were a fantastic experience, and I feel very lucky to have taken part \u2014 it\u2019s not something every rider gets to do in their first year as an Under-23,\u201d Stella told Tutto Bici Web<\/a>. \u201cIn one of the fastest Madisons ever, Sierra and I gave everything we had. Considering we were the youngest pair on the start line, we got the most we could out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n After that performance \u2014 11th place and a lap gained in the early stages \u2014 Stella flew directly from South America to Asia for the Tour de France criteriums in Singapore and Saitama, where he finished sixth behind household names such as Milan, Philipsen and Girmay. \u201cIt was a bit tiring travelling straight from Chile to Singapore, but I\u2019m happy with the choice I made,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n Eyes on a bigger role in 2026<\/p>\n That exhausting itinerary will end with the Ghent Six Day, before a short break and an early start to UAE\u2019s 2026 training camps. For Stella, the coming year represents the moment to bridge the gap between the development ranks and a more consistent presence in the senior team.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, I can\u2019t complain about 2025,\u201d he reflected. \u201cIt was my first year among the Under-23s and I already got to experience racing with the WorldTour team. I hope to keep progressing and next season maybe deliver a strong ride in a Classic and win a few more races.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s on the boards or in the spring Classics, Stella\u2019s 2025 campaign has laid the foundation for a decisive leap forward. Eleven months of travel, learning and perseverance have made him one of Italy\u2019s brightest young prospects \u2014 and if all goes to plan, 2026 will be the year he begins to show it in the colours of UAE Team Emirates.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most riders, the off-season means rest. For Davide Stella, it means one final race, another flight, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-251618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}