Mattia Gaffuri has finally made it. The 26-year-old Italian will race as a professional at WorldTour level with Picnic-PostNL in 2026 after five years of chasing his dreams.
Gaffuri raced as an under-23 rider in Italy, was successful in gravel races and twice made it to the final of the Zwift Academy, but never secured the coveted place with a team in cycling's top division.
In 2025, in a final shot at a professional career, he raced with the innovative and disruptive Swatt Club in Italy. They are an amateur club team driven by passion, public support and merchandising, but they train like professional riders. Gaffuri used his sports science degree to coach the riders and to discover every possible marginal gain.
His former Swatt Club teammate Filippo Conca won the Italian elite national title in June, embarrassing the many WorldTour pro riders in the race. Conca was quickly snapped up by Jayco-AlUla, while Gaffuri rode as a stagiaire with Polti-VisitMalta and quickly convinced the Picnic-PostNL coaches to give him a chance. It is arguably a Moneyball-style signing for the Dutch outfit, a calculated risk worth taking.
"What we saw was really impressive, with strong performances, even against pros," said Picnic-PostNL team head coach Rudi Kemna.
"Once we got in contact and looked at his data, that only confirmed what we’d seen; his numbers are outstanding."
Signing a professional contract for 2026 was a dream come true for Gaffuri.
"It's been a crazy five-year journey, but I made it," Gaffuri recently told Cyclingnews in Calpe, Spain, before pulling on the Picnic-PostNL jersey and joining his new teammates for a recovery ride.
Many people are surprised that Gaffuri has finally turned professional, but he deserves it. In 2025, he also won the Italian national gravel title, won the mountains classification at the Tour de Beauce in Canada, and chalked up a string of top-ten results, all while combining coaching riders at different levels.
The tragic death of close friend and Hagens Berman Jayco development rider, Samuele Privitera, during the Giro della Valle d'Aosta was traumatic for Gaffuri, but he was more determined than ever to become a pro.
"I started cycling late, when I was 20 years-old, after doing middle-distance running, so I did things differently," he explained.
"I don't have the background of cycling as a kid for years, but I've done so many things, failed and learnt from them all. It was painful to lose the Zwift Academy twice, but it taught me a lot about never giving up. I got closer and closer to the pro ranks and then last year we went for it with the Swatt Club.
"Racing gravel kind of opened the door to the elite world and we realised that maybe we could do something. It was a last chance for me, but it worked."
The Swatt Club's dominance of the Italian national championship played out live on television and sparked a very Italian 'polemica' about the quality and development paths in Italian cycling.
A year before, Alberto Bettiol had also publicly dismissed Gaffuri's ability as a pro-level coach, highlighting the gap between amateur racing and the WorldTour.
"I'm really proud of what we did at Swatt Club and it's cool to see they are a Continental team in 2026," Gaffuri said.
"I think the system we built worked because it was a really crazy group of friends having fun, but we didn't leave anything to chance. Hopefully, it's a wake-up call for Italian cycling."
Gaffuri has now proved Bettiol wrong but is not interested in responding to any criticism.
"For sure, it wasn't nice to hear, but I don't think it touched me too much. It didn't hurt my passion for cycling," he said.
"I'm on my own personal journey to be a pro rider. There are guys who have 10 times as much talent as I have, who will always be one step above me. I can't criticize them, so I just keep doing my own thing, and hopefully do as well as possible."
Debut at the UAE Tour, then Strade Bianche and perhaps the Giro d'Italia
Gaffuri will make his WorldTour debut at the UAE Tour in mid-February and then ride Strade Bianche and Tirreno-Adriatico with Picnic-PostNL.
Strade Bianche will be a key race in Gaffuri's spring. He has the gravel skills and climbing ability for the tough Tuscan course, with his performances in March also deciding if he will be part of the Picnic-PostNL team that will back Max Poole in the Giro d'Italia. Gaffuri rode the Under 23 Giro in 2021 but has never raced longer than a weeklong stage race at the Continental level.
"It'll be cool to ride Strade Bianche, but it's one thing racing gravel against gravel privateers and another against Tadej Pogačar and the pro Classic riders," Gaffuri explained.
"I think the team wants to accelerate my pro skill learning by throwing me into some tough races, with the hope I can then do better in other races.
"I will have to earn my spot in the Giro squad because there are a lot of great talents in the team. Max Poole is capable of doing really, really good this year and hopefully I will be able to be there and help him."
Gaffuri has been training hard in Calpe for his debut and can't hide his emotions.
"There's a lot of excitement. It's also a little bit scary, thinking that in a few weeks I would be thrown to the wolves," he joked.
"But I'm older than most of the guys who turn pro, so it should be OK. It'll be really important to experience as much as possible and really learn fast. I think it's something that I can do.
"I know that it's important to fail, to struggle in races, learn and become better. That's my main goal for 2026. The team has faith in me because they gave me a two-year contract, so I think I will have time to grow in the first year, and hopefully be able to show something, some potential in the future."
