“We all pay to be there”: Finn Fisher-Black reveals New Zealand riders must fund their own Worlds trip

Finn Fisher-Black will arrive at the World Championships in Montréal with ambitions of making New Zealand’s strongest impact on the men’s road race in more than a decade. The 24-year-old has identified a top-10 finish as his target on a course that should suit his climbing ability, but his preparations for the race have also highlighted an unusual problem facing the New Zealand team: its riders must pay their own way to the Worlds.

Fisher-Black has just completed his third Grand Tour of the season at the Vuelta a España, where he spent much of the race working for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe teammate Primoz Roglic.

Now, after a demanding three weeks in Spain, Fisher-Black will turn his attention toward Montréal and a chance to race for himself. The hilly circuit is reminiscent of the terrain on which he has produced some of his strongest performances, and he believes the New Zealand team has enough depth to make an impact in the closing stages.

“I’d love to go there and be fighting for the top 10,” Fisher-Black said. “It’d be nice just to be in the final,” he said in words to Cycling News.

Fisher-Black's challenge begins before the race itself. New Zealand's elite riders continue to receive no federation funding for their participation at the World Championships, meaning they must cover the costs themselves. “It is a condition of selection that riders must fund themselves to attend and compete at the 2026 UCI Road World Championships,” the federation's selection criteria states.

The policy has been in place since around the beginning of Fisher-Black's elite Worlds career and has created an unusual situation within the national team. The men's squad will contain six riders, while four women will represent New Zealand.

"It's a strange dynamic for NZ because we don't get funding from Cycling New Zealand; we all pay to be there, so it's also a strange dynamic, like we all kind of also want to do our own race. But we’re all good mates from New Zealand so it’ll probably be about looking after each other during the race and trying to have numbers during the final and take it from there."

The lack of financial support is not a new development. “It came in a few years ago, like, pretty much when I started doing the elite Worlds, they stopped the funding. It’s just the structure of Cycling New Zealand because they prioritise the track and the road; there’s no funding.”

The performances of the country's riders have not changed that situation. “We also do what we can, my sister [Niamh] was second last year [in the elite women’s road race] so you’d think there’d maybe be some change, but for the moment it’s the same. We have to do it like that, and we’re fortunate that for the rest of the year we have a lot of support from our teams.”

Fisher-Black's Vuelta was largely devoted to helping Roglic, but the accumulated racing could prove useful when he reaches Canada. “A lot of the time coming through a Grand Tour, your body feels a bit cooked, and as soon as it stops, your body shuts down. So I’ll try to keep the body ticking over a bit and then go on to the Worlds where we’ll have a good race there. We’ll have a strong team.”

The New Zealand lineup combines Fisher-Black's experience with a number of riders making their elite World Championship debuts. George Bennett provides the greatest experience, while Josh Kench and Ben Oliver will make their first appearances at this level. Laurence Pithie and Corbin Strong each have one previous elite Worlds participation.

Fisher-Black himself will therefore be one of the riders expected to provide leadership, particularly if the Montréal course produces the selective race he anticipates.