Transition from youth categories to élite cycling: relationships between early career performance and UCI World tour success.

BACKGROUND The present study aimed to describe the possible roles of cyclists' early career performance, on the transition process to elite cycling categories. METHODS Data from national and international databases, and results achieved during the UCI World Championships, were retrospectively analysed considering the Italian national Youth-U16, Junior-U18, and U23 categories, and international Junior-U18 and UCI World-Tour categories. RESULTS The 15% of Youth-U16, the 38.8% of Junior-U18 and the 60% of U23 athletes who ranked top-10 between 2007 and 2013, scored points in UCI World Tour competitions between 2012 and 2018. The 1.6% of Youth-U16, the 8.3% of Junior-U18 and 25% of U23 athletes who ranked top-10 between 2007 and 2013, ranked among the Italian Top-10 in the UCI World-Tour individual classification between 2012 and 2018. Performance level in Youth-U16 category displayed a low correlation with UCI World Tour performance while the performance level in Junior-U18 category displayed a moderate correlation. The 34% of the Junior World Championship TOP-25 cyclists, participated in the elite competition. Trivial to small correlations emerged between Junior and elite World Championship performance levels. CONCLUSIONS Early performance seems not to represent a good predictor of elite performance, while the Junior-U18 and the U23 performance level, emerged as potential indicators of future success in the elite categories.