Matthew Riccitello interview: Why 2026 is a big year for American cycling's emerging star
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Jessica Hopkins
After finishing fifth and winning the white jersey at the 2025 Vuelta a Espana, Riccitello is moving to a new team – with new ambitions
“I didn’t have anything to lose, so I was just excited to see what happened.”
Entering the penultimate stage of the 2025 Vuelta a Espana, Matthew Riccitello was 58 seconds behind the white jersey and in the top five for the general classification (GC).
Against the backdrop of Jonas Vingegaard conquering the Bola del Mundo climb, to all but seal another Grand Tour victory, the then-22-year-old produced a masterclass of his own to leapfrog Giulio Pellizzari and secure both honours by one minute and 28 seconds.
It was a statement performance from the young American.
But Riccitello was not meant to be there. Up until a week before the Spanish Grand Tour’s start, Israel-Premier Tech had decided to target stage wins, and it was only due to illness that he got the call-up.
The Vuelta was also heavily disrupted by protests — overwhelmingly targeted at Israel-Premier Tech, the pro team that Riccitello was riding for and who many called to leave the race. They rebranded and will be known as NSN Cycling Team next season.
Riccitello sat down with The Athletic to talk about breaking into the WorldTour as an American, the 2025 Vuelta and his Grand Tour dreams.
“I grew up around the sport,” Riccitello says, speaking from Paris in the middle of a training camp.
“The Tour de France was always on TV in the summer and there were always bikes around the house, but I did all different sports growing up.
“I’d always run cross-country and track in middle school and the beginning of high school — the running races that I did when I was really young were almost harder than bike races now — and I swam for a little while on a year-round swim team.
“Cycling was the last one I picked up, when I was 14 or 15, I don’t know why, but once I started road cycling for the first time, that’s all I did.”
Riccitello grew up and joined his first cycling team in Tucson, Arizona. There are no major WorldTour races in the United States — although the Maryland Cycling Classic, a second-tier race, has been expanded to three days for 2026 — while all three Grand Tours and the vast majority of the sport’s major races take place in Europe.
“It’s definitely different,” Riccitello says, describing growing up on the outside of such a Eurocentric sport.
“The Europeans get into the sport quite a bit earlier — before they can walk, they’re riding a bike.
“When I came over to Europe for the first time, you were a bit behind. We’re there to try to learn how to race our bikes with the Belgian kids, who are almost teaching us in a way because they’ve been doing it for 10 years longer than we have already.
“It’s hard to learn in the United States — the way the roads are and the way the culture is, the races are just not as complex.
“There are races in the U.S., but they’re not like anything compared to the European races.
“Knowing tactically what to do is a huge part (of the differences), and then also positioning, when there are 100 people in the race instead of 40, and the roads are narrow, twisty and turning.”
Matthew Riccitello finishing alongside Britain’s Tom Pidcock on stage 13 of the 2025 Vuelta (Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Ricitello first moved to Europe when he was 19, to join under-23s side Hagens Berman Axeon in Girona, Spain. The team was led by Axel Merckx, son of five-time Tour de France winner Eddy.
“The hardest thing for non-European cyclists is just having to move everything to Europe and get used to the lifestyle here while also training and racing,” Riccitello says.
“Being so far away from where you grew up and your family is probably the hardest part of the sport. You’re not a two-hour plane ride away from your family like most Europeans.
“But on the other side, the one thing I do pretty much every day is ride my bike.”
That doesn’t change from the U.S. to Europe. Consistency brings a bit of comfort.
“It’s (also) a pretty cool opportunity to have, to spend so much time here and learn a bunch of different cultures because you’re in a bunch of different countries. It’s something that not a lot of non-Europeans get to do.”
Having left the junior classification for the under-23s in 2021, Riccitello made the step to the seniors and WorldTour racing two years later with Israel-Premier Tech.
“It’s changed in the last four or five years and now the jump from the juniors to the under-23s is almost bigger than the jump from under-23s to professional,” he said.
A fifth-placed GC finish at the 2024 Tour de Suisse proved that Riccitello was taking the jump in his stride, setting up a 2025 season where he went from strength to strength.
“I approach every year pretty similarly,” the 23-year-old continues. “If I feel like I’m improving a bit year on year, then I’m happy and motivated.
“At the beginning of the year, the plan from the team was to go to the Vuelta but I was told that they changed their plan and didn’t want to race for GC and wanted stages.
“Maybe a month before the Vuelta, I was taken off the team. And then one or two weeks before, I was told again that I was back on the team because some guys got sick. The run into the race was a bit stressful.
“I was ready to be finished with the season and it was disappointing. I felt like I was going well and would miss this opportunity to perform well there. That made the result a lot cooler, because I made the most of the opportunity, which is really rare in the sport.”
Riccitello in the front group on stage 17 of last year’s Vuelta (Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
At 22 years old, Riccitello finished above established names such as Felix Gall, Sepp Kuss, Egan Bernal and Giulio Ciccone in the GC, and securing the white jersey.
It had been a goal for him heading into the Vuelta — where he finished fourth in the youth classification the year before — but when was the first time in the race he thought it was seriously on the cards?
“The second stage,” Riccitello says. “It was like the first uphill finish and I finished in the front group, but I just remember in my head thinking, ‘If I’m with these guys this early, three weeks is a long time’. I knew that I had form.
“The first day you’re with a select group and you then see that they’re suffering as much as you are, you definitely get a confidence boost.”
It came down to the penultimate stage, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Giulio Pellizzari in fifth.
“I went into it thinking I didn’t have anything to lose, so I was just excited to see what happened,” Riccitello continues. “The whole day was UAE (Team Emirates) pushing a really hard pace so (the peloton) was in one line, which I like. I prefer the stage to be hard all day.
“If the whole day is hard, I can be closer to what I can do fresh at the finish climb. There are a lot of guys similar to me who do well with a lot of fatigue.
“It doesn’t always go perfectly, but the times when I notice that it doesn’t go well are when you’re fearing the suffering.
“But when you don’t have that fear and you’re more looking forward to it in a way, (it goes better). What helps me a lot is knowing that the more I’m suffering, the more the rest of the guys are too. And then it’s more of the battle of who can suffer the most.”
Protests that had affected the whole race forced the peloton to be neutralised in Madrid.
“It definitely would have been more enjoyable if there weren’t protests,” Riccitello says.
“The race is stressful enough as is, with all the moving parts, but it wasn’t something that only our team had to deal with — everybody in the race had this feeling.
“It was also hard because in the back of my head, I still thought it’s an issue that’s bigger than sport. It was a weird feeling. The hardest thing for our team was just having that feeling like all these protests were happening because we were there.
“Then the question was, ‘If we left, what would things have been better?’.
“We definitely thought about (leaving). Our team wanted to finish the race. We thought leaving the race would also set a precedent, so I don’t think that was the best option either.
The 2025 Vuelta was affected by protests (Pierre-Philippe Marcou / AFP)
“Historically, sports have always been a place where you should be able to compete without any political issues, just focus on competition.”
Before stage 14, Israel-Premier Tech changed their branding to remove ‘Israel’ from riders’ jerseys due to safety concerns, in an effort to reduce the effects of the protests.
“It definitely didn’t hurt,” Riccitello notes. “But actually the whole rebrand for next year is good because the riders shouldn’t have to wear Israel on the jersey.
“It is political now because of the war. You can have whatever view you want, but you shouldn’t have to have Israel on the jersey.
“So, going forward, it’s good. But maybe it would have been helpful to have things changed a bit earlier.”
The American announced his transfer to Decathlon-CMA CGM in September, a day after the Vuelta finished, a move that he explained had been in the works for months, and so was unrelated to the protests. He joins a young, talented team that includes Gall and France’s new cycling darling, Paul Seixas.
“What excites me the most is just how ambitious the team is,” Riccitello says. “That’s why you see good riders so keen to join the team. It’s a really exciting feeling.”
Looking forward, his first races with Decathlon in 2026 will include Volta ao Algarve, Volta a Catalunya, Itzulia Basque Country and Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (formerly known as the Critérium du Dauphiné), with the second half of the season yet to be confirmed.
“The Grand Tours are the races that I enjoy the most and that motivate me the most,” Riccitello says. “If I had to put a number on it, I’d love to finish on the podium of a Grand Tour in the near future. That would be a goal.”
After his progression over the last few seasons, it’s increasingly hard to argue that the American isn’t heading that way.
