Jay Vine's successor? Alpecin-Deceuninck welcome Zwift Academy winner Luca Vergallito - "I want to prove to myself and the team"

Alpecin-Deceuninck have struck gold recently with the signing of Jay Vine after his victory in the Zwift Academy, and now they have welcomed the most recent male winner Luca Vergallito who will be riding for the development team in 2023.

“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I was performing well the whole week. So I knew that I was the favourite to win the finals," Vergallito told CyclingTips. “But you never know... So I was confident but at the same time I was anxious and nervous... So when they announced the winner obviously I was super happy and excited for me."

“I continued to improve. In the previous year, I had some contact with the pro teams but nothing serious happened," he continued, adding that the Zwift Academy was "an opportunity to show that I’m good. That I can be a pro cyclist. So I decided to try."

With Jay Vine leaving the team, the Italian is in the right place to start his pro career taking into consideration this season. He attended the recent Alpecin-Deceuninck training camp already with the now World Tour team squad and admitted he was "stressed to be known as the Zwift guy", however he has fit right in. “I actually felt part of the team. So it wasn’t normal like the other pros from Alpecin-Deceuninck, but I am part of this team, I am a pro so it was good.”

“They want me to develop in the team because I have no real experience in real racing. So I will do probably second category races because they want to give me time to develop and see how I behave in a peloton riding with the other riders," he continued. Alongside former B&B Hotels-KTM rider Axel Laurance, both will reinforce the development ranks of the Belgian team.

"They know that I have physical ability, that I have numbers and only they want me to prove that I can be good without the numbers also in real racing. So I know where I will start the season and then if they see that I am good enough to do more prestigious races they will evaluate," he added.

"I would like to prove that I can be good as a professional athlete, so get some results, do some big racing and yeah I want to prove to myself and the team and everybody that I can be good also in real racing. And maybe have a chance to reach the WorldTour team in the future. I don’t have a specific goal, also because I don’t have a real programme yet. But I would like to perform well in the races I’m going to do and I would like to develop. Right now it’s like an experiment. You never know," he concluded.