Sebastopol’s Luke Lamperti pulls off three-peat at USA Cycling championships

It was déjà vu all over again for Luke Lamperti at the USA Cycling Pro Road National Championships in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Thursday. For the third consecutive year, the 20-year-old from Sebastopol entered the elite men’s criterium with no teammates in the race.

For the third consecutive year, he won.

A criterium is shorter than a normal road race, but more action-packed, riders cornering and jostling during laps on a fixed course. As he has in years past, Lamperti rode a clever, opportunistic race in this year’s national championship on June 22, gluing himself to the wheels of the strongest team before unleashing the burst that decided the outcome.

The last rider Lamperti marked, before launching that final attack, was his friend and longtime training partner, Tyler Williams of Santa Rosa, a member of Legion of Los Angeles, a domestic cycling powerhouse. Williams finished third, putting a pair of Sonoma County riders on the podium for this event.

Lamperti and Williams are both products of Team Swift, the Santa Rosa-based junior development squad coached by former pro rider Laura Charameda.

Lamperti attacked on the final corner of the race – later than he intended, he told Cyclingnews.com. “I wanted to go with three corners to go and then, Tyler went early and I had to get on his wheel and come around before the last corner.”

Williams capped his strong showing at these national championships with a second place in the men’s road race, two days later. Lamperti finished eighth in that event.

Lamperti’s latest Knoxville win came nine days after he out-dueled a handful of the best young sprinters in the world to snag victory in Stage 3 of the Giro Next Gen, in Italy. Halfway through the 2023 season, he’s already racked up a remarkable eight wins.

A 2021 graduate of Cardinal Newman High School, Lamperti now lives in Girona, Spain, for most of the year. This is his third season on the roster of Trinity Racing, an under-23 squad based in the United Kingdom.

With each win, Lamperti edges closer to his goal of competing in the WorldTour — the Major Leagues of the sport.

Last December, he was invited to spend a week in a training camp in Spain with UAE Team Emirates, led by the Slovenian star Tadej Pogacar, who has twice won the Tour de France. The following month he attended a camp with Jumbo-Visma, whose stacked roster includes Jonas Vingegaard, defending champion of the Tour de France and a favorite going into this year’s race, which begins July 1.

He’ll likely make the jump after this season. Though only 20, Lamperti is already in his third year racing at this level, making him something of a paradox — a youthful veteran on his under-23 squad.

“Even though I’m still young (for the category),” he told The Press Democrat earlier this month. “I’ve learned a lot the past few seasons.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.