Rien Schuurhuis never expected to win this year’s cycling world championships, nor come close to claiming the race’s distinctive rainbow jersey. For the sole representative of the Vatican City in the 200-strong field, simply being at the race in Switzerland was enough.
“If you just do cycling for winning, then most cyclists will be very miserable,” Schuurhuis tells CNN Sport. “A lot of riders, not only me, know before they start that they’re not going to win.”
This year’s world championships marked the latest and perhaps final chapter of Schuurhuis’ sporting odyssey with the Vatican, one that has seen him become the first cyclist to compete for the tiny city-state at an elite level.
Since 2022 – soon after the International Cycling Union (UCI), cycling’s global governing body, recognized the Vatican as a member – the Dutch-born rider has appeared at three world championships as well as September’s European Championships in Belgium, on each occasion proudly wearing his team’s yellow and white jersey.
Covering about 100 acres and with a population of 1,000 people, the Vatican is an unlikely presence at some of cycling’s biggest annual races. Yet over the years, Schuurhuis has assembled a small but vocal fan club.
The Vatican’s link with sport isn’t just limited to the past five years. The sportiest pope of recent decades was Pope John Paul II (1979-2005), a keen skier and swimmer who continued to hit the slopes after his election and even built an Olympic swimming pool in the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.
Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, is a soccer fan who played as a goalkeeper and supported San Lorenzo while growing up in Argentina. He once joked with Argentinian legend Diego Maradona – described by Pope Francis as a “poet” on the field – about the infamous “hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal against England.
“I asked him, jokingly, ‘So, which is the guilty hand?’” he wrote in a recently published memoir.
During Pope Francis’ pontificate, the Vatican’s engagement with the world of sport has ramped up significantly. As well as the establishment of Athletica Vaticana, the Dicastery for Culture and Education acts as a “ministry for sport” equivalent.
“Athletica Vaticana … has traveled its first leg at full speed, in a whirlwind of sports, solidarity and spiritual initiatives,” Giampaolo Mattei, the President of Athletica Vaticana, told CNN Sport. “On many occasions, Pope Francis has met and had words of encouragement and direction for ‘his’ team … calling himself the ‘coach of the heart’ of Vatican Athletica.”
As for Porro, who at 40 is one of the youngest ambassadors serving in the Vatican, she hopes that the Vatican might one day take part in the Olympics, pointing to the 2032 Brisbane Games in Australia as something to aim for.
After four years in Rome, her posting at the Vatican is due to finish at the end of the month, and she and Schuurhuis will return to Canberra, Australia, with their two children. Though the move will spell an end to Schuurhuis’ time competing for the Vatican, he is confident that he will keep pursuing cycling, his love for the sport stronger than ever before.
“This is who I am, this is what makes me happy,” he says. “Usually, it’s the best moment of the day, going out for a ride and feeling energized the whole day after.”
