Armagh cyclist Seth Dunwoody will ride at cycling’s highest professional level next season after securing a place with Bahrain Victorious for 2027.
The 20-year-old Irish national road race champion will be promoted from Bahrain Victorious’s development squad to the team’s WorldTour roster, following a season in which he has established himself among the leading under-23 riders in the world.
Dunwoody’s promotion was reported on 24 August 2026, after a series of major results on both the road and track. For the young rider from Armagh, the move represents the next stage of a career that began with family-funded trips to race in Belgium during his school holidays.
A breakthrough season on road and track
The Armagh rider won the Irish national road race championship in Cong in June. He also finished second in two of the most prestigious under-23 classics: Paris-Roubaix Espoirs and Gent-Wevelgem.
Those performances followed stage victories at the Giro NextGen, Turul Romaniei and Circuit des Ardennes last year. Dunwoody also returned to the velodrome after several years away from track racing and won Ireland’s European under-23 points-race title in Cottbus in July.
His results have been backed up by opportunities to compete with the senior Bahrain Victorious WorldTour squad. During 2026, he has raced at events including the AlUla Tour, Tour des Alpes-Maritimes, Classic Var, Ename Samyn Classic, Danilith Nokere Koerse and Ronde van Limburg.
The team said those appearances had helped confirm that Dunwoody could compete at the highest level and was ready to move up permanently, even though he still has two years remaining at under-23 level.
Unusual route into professional cycling
Dunwoody first attracted attention while racing in Belgium as a teenager. Francis van Mechelen, sports director of Cannibal B Victorious, said the initial tip came from an unlikely source: a Belgian fisherman who had settled in Ireland.
“I was tipped off by an old Belgian fisherman who had settled in Ireland after finding the love of his life. He had seen Seth racing as an U-17 rider and told me about this talented young cyclist.”
Van Mechelen invited Dunwoody to Belgium for a race and said he was immediately impressed. The rider went on to claim his first UCI victory for Cannibal B Victorious at Penn Ar Bed in France, convincing the team that further successes would follow.
Van Mechelen said he remains in frequent contact with Dunwoody and his family, describing them as “wonderful people” and expressing confidence in the rider’s future.
Family support behind the Armagh rider
Dunwoody’s route to the WorldTour has involved significant support from his father Glen and the rest of his family. He said his father paid for flights and trips when he was a junior, describing that backing as his first major sponsorship.
“The bank of dad was the first and biggest sponsor I’ve ever had.”
The new contract comes after a difficult moment in the under-23 Tour de France, where Dunwoody crashed out the previous week. The disappointment has been eased by the confirmation of his WorldTour future.
Dunwoody said joining the senior team felt like the natural next step after years of support, beginning when he was eight and first committed to becoming a WorldTour rider.
“It’s a dream come true,” said Dunwoody.
He thanked the staff at Cannibal B Victorious and Bahrain Victorious’s development team for helping him develop over the past four years, both as a cyclist and as a person. He also said the team’s strong roster, ambition and shared goals made the decision to continue with Bahrain Victorious an easy one.
Bahrain Victorious managing director Milan Erzen said Dunwoody’s promotion demonstrated that the pathway from Cannibal B Victorious, through the development squad and into the WorldTour, was working as planned.
For Armagh, the move gives one of its young cycling talents a place on one of the sport’s biggest stages. Dunwoody will now begin preparing for his first full WorldTour season in 2027, with the team saying it expects him to continue developing within its senior programme.