This guy is on a personal mission to cycling glory. After an impressive start to the season, Luke Lamperti has just won the first sprint of the Giro Next Gen, in Magenta, and is now dreaming of turning professional next year. The Californian made perfect use of the work carried out by his Trinity Racing team, which led him out to perfection in the final kilometre, enabling him to beat by half a wheel the talented Alberto Bruttomesso (CT Friuli), first Maglia Rosa last year and already betrothed to Bahrain Victorious.

Lamperti has speed in his blood: as a child, he raced motocross, then he decided he didn’t need a mechanical engine to begin with and chose the bike, showing off another kind of engine, that of his legs. Trinity Racing – which knows a thing or two about talent, having also raised a certain Tom Pidcock, winner among others of the Giro U23 in 2020 – didn’t let him slip through their fingers. Thus, Lamperti moved to Europe, passing from the California sunshine to that of the Spanish Costa Brava (he lives in Girona), popping in now and then to the team’s headquarters in Britain.

When he returns to the United States he enjoys criteriums, of which he even became national champion in 2021 and 2022. This is the ideal way to train his power, vision and technique on the bike, all aspects that Lamperti is demonstrating to possess in large quantities. He has been talked about well for a couple of years now, but this season he has managed to turn into a real winner, which in cycling, you know, is never just a detail.

In the space of four months, he has won a stage in the Volta ao Alentejo, the Circuit des Ardennes and the Tour de Bretagne, won the Rutland-Melton, and a couple of weeks ago also took three stages in the Tour of Japan. By winning today in Magenta, he has also raised the quality of his victories, and the impression is that he has only just begun.