Ciccone finishes first from the GC riders to make some serious gains on his rivals
From the hugely successful Grande Partenza in Albania to the chaotic conclusion of week one in Siena, it’s been a strong start to the Giro d’Italia for Lidl-Trek.
Mads Pedersen, as promised earlier in the week, relished the chance to repay the hard work of his teammates earlier in the week to provide them with the same chance to win that they afforded him. On the approach to the first gravel sector, Daan Hoole and Pedersen led Mathias Vacek and Giulio Ciccone at the front of the bunch, safely avoid the chaos amidst the dust cloud gathering throughout the peloton. Pedersen, the purple menace, destroyed the peloton on the first gravel sector with a huge pull at the front.
Lidl-Trek had numbers in the game, with Vacek, Ciccone and Patrick Konrad amongst the vastly reduced peloton. 22-year-old Vacek, having been a model teammate for the whole race (and year!) had been given a free role to race for the stage win, and he played his cards well. After a group of four went clear on the longest sector, Vacek made his bid for glory. The Czech talent bridged across to the lead group and was looking supremely strong, until he was distanced by an acceleration from Del Toro on Colle Pinzuto.
With the chance for stage victory slipping away, Vacek slowed and waited for the chasing group of Ciccone, where he emptied his remaining reserves of strengths to reel in the only remaining GC threat – Egan Bernal. The last push was down to Ciccone himself, who sprinted up Via Santa Caterina to secure third place on the stage, behind winner Van Aert (Visma) and the new Maglias Rosa, Del Toro (UAE).
“I was feeling super good today. When I made it to the break there was only a few km that I could recover and then Del Toro started attacking and it was a bit too much for me, but I could make it back on one of the kicks. On the last sector they went full gas and I got dropped with Bernal. I waited for the group of Cicco and pulled full gas for him to make a big gap to Roglič.” – Mathias Vacek.
“It was a hard day, it was one of the days that all the teams were waiting for and were scared for. A gravel stage in a grand tour is always hard and you never know what can happen. You can be super lucky or you can have bad luck. It’s always hard. I really need to say thanks to Mads, we had the plan before the start to run into the first gravel sector in first position and we did that, then he destroyed the bunch in a few minutes. From there we started to ride fast and we went full gas to the finish line. I’m really happy because this day was one of the hardest days of the Giro and I was feeling super good. For the GC, I don’t want to say too much because I’m looking at it day by day. I think now we have maybe the hardest day for me coming up, the long TT. I want to stay focussed on it, and then lets see what the situation is after the TT. For now I live day by day and I don’t want to look too far in front, but I’m happy with my legs and my performance.” – Giulio Ciccone.
