Peter Finn remembers being flabbergasted by his son Lorenzo’s resilience and character. “Before cycling he played football and tennis, and for one tennis match we had a one-and-a-hour drive to get there,” Peter, speaking by video call, recounts to Rouleur; Lorenzo was ten at the time. “The game started at 5pm and it shouldn’t have lasted long. But it didn’t finish until 8pm as one set went back and forth for three hours. Lorenzo just wouldn’t give in – I’d never seen such dedication from any of my kids before.” Eventually, in the fading light, Lorenzo was beaten on the red clay court. “He never cries but it was the first and last time he’d come off court in tears as he’d been so determined to win,” Peter continues. The next game Lorenzo played? “He won; he got that monkey off his back.”

In the ensuing years, Lorenzo would drop the tennis racquet in favour of a bike and two wheels, swapping dreams of Grand Slam titles for world championship realities: in 2024 he became the junior road race world champion in Switzerland, and a year later the U23 world champion in Rwanda. The once promising tennis teen is now cycling’s most exciting and talented teen. Ralph Denk, manager of big-moneyed Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe whose World-Tour team he will race for from 2027, has identified Lorenzo as “our future”.

Through the years and his various sports, there’s been one defining trait that has guided him: he might be representing the tricolore of Italy, but he’s got Sheffield steel and Yorkshire stubbornness coursing through his veins. “I’m classic English: composed, I need to keep it cool as I’m in front of customers a lot, and very competitive,” Peter, from Sheffield, says.

“Lorenzo’s picked up that character from me, and that marks him out from others.” Italy’s rising star was made in Genoa but has his roots in the British Isles.

This article was published by Rouleur magazine in June 2026. To read the full article click here.