Carson Mattern & Mairen Lawson selected
We are excited to announce that TaG Cycling Race Team u23 members have been selected for some of Cycling’s most coveted race opportunities coming in September.
August 23-29 2025 both Carson Mattern,20 and Mairen Lawson,21 will race for the National Team at Tour de L’Avenir men’s and women’s races. It is 7 stages and a prologue and is considered the (19-23 year old) young riders Tour de France.
The Tour de l’Avenir was created in 1961 by Jacques Marchand, editor-in-chief of the newspaper L’Équipe
At its inception, it brought together national teams of eight riders, half of whom were under 25 years old. The race was gradually opened to professionals. Since 2007, the event has been entirely dedicated to young riders aged 19 to 23. This is Espoir. Juniors are too young at 17 & 18 and seniors start at 23 years old
The Tour de l’Avenir is now part of the UCI U23 Nations Cup (category 2.Ncup). From here, final selections will be made to World Championships.
Carson was recently crowned Canadian National Time Trial Champion, and Mairen won silver at National Championships also.
Sidney Swierenga has continued her winning ways in Europe at the junior level. She will be representing Canada at the World Championships on September 21 in Rwanda, Kigali. Her goal of course is a title. As number 1 ranked Junior Woman in the World. We know she is well capable of that.
Stay tuned and thank you for your continued faith and support of the program. We all strive to keep the young talent coming in and developing. Our program represents the many young riders that are not quite there at 18 years old and maybe need a year or two of key development to master their craft and be competitive on the World Stage. Carson would have been lost without TaG, as would have Mairen. Sidney has had the opportunity with us to refine her game against the Pro field and step into it ready to win.
We have high hopes of seeing our riders on the start line for Montreal World Championships in 2026.