Giulio Ciccone has raced the Giro d’Italia 9 instances. The 31-year-old Abruzzese has gained three levels throughout these years, and has additionally worn a Grand Tour’s chief’s jersey earlier than, yellow on the 2019 Tour de France, and been King of the Mountains in 2023. Nonetheless, the Lidl-Trek rider has by no means fairly managed to put on the pink jersey, to guide his house race.
That each one modified on Tuesday’s stage 4, when, after 150 Giro levels, when, due to some canny bonus second poaching, Ciccone lastly leads the Grand Tour. Visibly emotional on the rostrum, and in his TV interview, the Italian has achieved one thing particular to him.
“The sensation is superb,” he mentioned post-stage. “I all the time dreamed of this jersey since I used to be a child. I began this sport dreaming to put on this jersey, and I feel at present I realised it. I used to be not anticipating this at present after many onerous moments, particularly final yr with the crash. That is one thing actually loopy.”
Final yr, Ciccone was pressured out of the race forward of stage 15, whereas he had a strong place within the top-10. On the time, he mentioned he had “no phrases”, such was his disappointment on. A yr later, and people tears of disappointment have turned to tears of pleasure.
It was selected bonus seconds: the person from Chieti took two seconds on the Purple Bull KM, behind Giulio Pellizzari (Purple Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) and Jan Christen (UAE Crew Emirates-XRG). Then, when it got here right down to a lowered bunch dash, he was there once more, ending third, forward of different riders aiming to poach pink, solely behind Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Crew Emirates-XRG) and Orluis Aular (Movistar). That was the decisive 4 bonus seconds. He now leads by simply 4 seconds from Christen.
Ciccone defined: “This morning once we did a gathering we had a plan, and our plan was 50:50, it was a type of levels the place you did not know if it will be a dash or a lowered bunch prefer it was. My plan was to only take this jersey, take the seconds within the bonus dash and within the end. I completed third twice, sufficient to put on the jersey.”
As for what’s subsequent, the race reaches his house area of Abruzzo on stage seven, on Friday, with the primary correct GC day to Blockhaus. The dream can be to put on pink there, to maybe even maintain it.
“I feel it is going to be tremendous good, however we nonetheless need to do the stage tomorrow and onerous moments earlier than we arrive there,” Ciccone mentioned. “It is a huge dream, and why not? I really feel good, we now have crew. We need to defend, and we need to go actually far.”
The dream won’t be over simply but.
