The countdown to the start of the Junior category season is nearing its end. In its third year in the youth peloton, Picusa Academy will have its first major event of the calendar with the opening round of the Spanish Cup in Don Benito (Badajoz) on February 21. After two campaigns filled with victories \u2014 a total of 44 \u2014 the Galician team will once again pursue an objective that goes beyond winning: continuing to serve as a launchpad to the professional ranks. <\/p>\n\n
Since the project began, six riders have stepped up from junior competitions to teams at the highest level. One of them is Brazilian Henrique Bravo, who last Friday stood out at the opening of the European calendar in the Cl\u00e1sica Camp de Morvedre. Racing in the colours of Soudal Quick-Step, he lined up alongside WorldTour stars and finished the Valencian race among the top 20. <\/p>\n\n
Henrique Bravo, 19, raced in 2024 with the team sponsored by the historic Picusa company from Padr\u00f3n. That same season, he also earned an opportunity with a professional squad, as did Lois de Jes\u00fas. The reward achieved by these two cyclists has also been secured by four others at the end of last season. Santiago-born Diego L\u00f3pez signed with Tavfer, \u00c9ric Igual joined Movistar Team Academy, while Enrique Maranch\u00f3n and Omer Ramon became part of the NSN Development Team. With this Swiss structure, Xian Alvari\u00f1o will begin training from this Friday onwards at the NSN camp being held in Alicante. <\/p>\n\n
The year 2025 also marked Picusa Academy\u2019s international consolidation, as the team competed for the first time in the Ain Bugey Valromey Tour, often referred to as the \u201cTour de France\u201d of the junior category. Looking ahead to the new season, the team management based in Mos has assembled a roster of twelve permanent riders, with additional guest riders joining at different points throughout the year. Seven cyclists have renewed their contracts, while five have been recruited through scouting at regional, national, and international levels. Siete corredores han renovado y cinco han sido captados a trav\u00e9s del seguimiento realizado a nivel auton\u00f3mico, estatal e internacional. <\/p>\n\n
Los gallegos Xian Alvari\u00f1o y Rodrigo Garc\u00eda, los castellanoleoneses Hugo Mu\u00f1oz y Adri\u00e1n Prieto, el brasile\u00f1o Dimas Mota y el argentino Nicol\u00e1s Almada han apostado por seguir en la escuadra mosense para completar su etapa en el pelot\u00f3n juvenil. Por su parte, el australiano Ryan O\u2019Shaugnessy se une de manera permanente despu\u00e9s de haber competido en las filas de Picusa Academy durante tres meses de la \u00faltima campa\u00f1a <\/p>\n\n
The five new reinforcements will make their debut in the Junior category after standing out as cadets. Two of them are Galician: Breixo Coch\u00f3n, from Poio Bike, and Lucas Blanco \u2014 Spain\u2019s runner-up in the individual time trial \u2014 from Cambre. From the Valencian Community, Xavier Arnal (Juan Giner Ulevel Vitaldinsport) and Fran Gramage (Guerola-Ontinyent), a double medalist at the national Track Championships, have joined the squad. The other new addition, Vinicius Thor, arrives from Brazil. <\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The junior squad will feature a core group of twelve permanent riders this season. Six cyclists have made the jump to top-level teams since this project was launched. A former rider of the team, Brazilian Henrique Bravo, shone last week at the Cl\u00e1sica Camp de Morvedre wearing the colours of Soudal Quick-Step. The countdown to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sin-categoria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velofuturacademy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}