Still just 19, Adrien Costa is one of the brightest prospects on the US cycling scene. The two-time silver medalist in the junior time trial world championships dived into the deep end of U23 racing last year with Axeon Hagens Berman and emerged with enough laurels to earn a trainee spin with top WorldTour team Etixx-QuickStep.
Costa spent the majority of 2016 racing in Europe, either with Axeon or with USA Cycling's U23 national team. During the spring European campaign, he was seventh at the U23 Tour of Flanders, won the Queen stage and the overall at the Tour de Bretagne, was third overall in Rhone-Alpes Isere Tour, and won the time trial stage at Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc. He returned to the US for U23 Nationals and was third in the time trial as part of Axeon's podium sweep.
A short break led into the Tour of Utah, where Costa dropped the likes of Darwin Atapuma and Andrew Talansky on his way to earning three stage podiums and second overall. With a mid-August birthday, Costa accomplished all this while he was 18 years old. After Utah, Costa returned to Europe, winning the time trial and finishing in the top 10 on the final three days to take third overall at the Tour de l'Avenir – the world's most prestigious U23 stage race.
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From there, Costa headed to the Tour of Britain with Etixx-QuickStep, but a bad crash on stage 2 forced him to drop out. He recovered in time to race a couple of one-days with the Belgian super team and then returned home to Bend, Oregon, to start preparing for another year with the development team run by Axel Merckx.
Cyclingnews caught up with Costa last month while he was in California at the Axeon Hagens Berman training camp.
2016 Tour of Utah runner-up Adrien Costa (Axeon Hagens Berman) will turn 20 in August. (Davey Wilson)
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