Moving directly from the Junior ranks to the World Tour is no longer a complete novelty, but it remains rare. Michael Leonard joined that elite cadre when he skipped the under-23 category to join the Ineos Grenadiers at the beginning of the season, and the 19-year-old is in line for his first world Tour race on a tour of Guangxi.

"It was a good experience this week, I'm learning a lot from being in the Peloton with high caliber riders," Leonard told Cyclingnews in Nanning. "At the beginning of the season there were a lot of races that I struggled with illness, but I pushed them forward," he said. It's a tough moment that allows you to grow."

The leap to the standard is considerable, but when Leonard left his native Canada in early 2022 and raced with Franco Ballerini's team as an Italian junior, early exposure to racing in Europe has long been part of the test of maturity for aspiring North American riders, but there are several reasons why." "Perhaps moving to Tuscany was a bigger step than going from junior to professional racing," Leonard said. "I didn't speak the language, I had no clue what I was going into. It was a reality check. [Joining Ineos] was a big step, but I was already in the environment and more or less knew what I was going into."

At first glance, Leonard's decision to seek a European team before he had even completed high school seems to be the act of an ambitious rider, a young man in a hurry, who follows a itemized plan to reach the world Tour as soon as possible. The reality, he explained, is that it was more an act of exploration. Leonard's results from his first year as a junior suggested that he was good, and he told him exactly how good his time in Italy was, but no matter how the race unfolded, it would be an adventure. "I didn't go to Italy thinking I needed to do that to go on a world tour or something," Leonard said. "When I went to Italy, I just thought it would be a great year. Whether it was the end of my cycling career or the beginning of it, I was going to have a good experience."Leonard had contacted Team Franco Ballerini in a modern way by sending a direct message on Instagram, but he had already caught the attention of the team when he became 2021 Tour de l'emann 2nd with the Canadian national team. The team, acting as Corratec's feeder, provided accommodation and he arrived on the 2nd of last year. By 3 May, Leonard had already stood on the podium as the winner of the trofeo Ballero nel Cuore. "Then I kept winning, and it just went slowly from there," he said. Slowly perhaps not in surgical terms. By the end of the summer, he had signed a three-year contract with Ineos after weighing the pros and cons of skipping the Under-23 category. "I don't know if one method is necessarily better than the other, but it's just that different things work for different people," Leonard says. "But,今年の私のプログラムは主に2.1と2.Pro It's a race anyway, so it's not that different from being on a team on the continent."Perhaps Ineos, which is currently in transition, has invested heavily in young people over the past few seasons and will help lower the team's age profile in the process," he said. Their 2023 roster includes 23 riders under the age of 8, including Leonard's fellow teenager Josh Tarling. "I'm in races where the average age of the team is under 22, so it might be a bit more comfortable to be in the environment with them," said Leonard, who is based in Andorra, where Ineos has a service course. "The team is definitely focused on supporting young riders. They hired Simon Watts as the performance pathway manager, so there's a lot of support and that's definitely helpful too. "After riding to win every time I raced as a junior, Leonard has naturally been mostly placed in a supporting role since joining Ineos, but he downplayed the idea that the transition would be difficult," he said. "What motivates me is to do my best and do a good job," he said. "If my job is to win like a junior, and I do it, I will be happy. But if my job is to take my teammates to the right place, or to ride up to a certain kilometer, I will be equally happy if I achieve it."The race in Hungary with Egan was a special experience, and I was able to do my job very well there. I was happy to help the team and learn as much as I could from him. Next season is about continuing my progress and raising my level physically, just going to be more in the final of the race.”