“When you’re with a rider like Del Toro, you don’t have many options…” Ciccone explains his victory

A few months ago, Ciccone’s crash at the Giro d’Italia was a true sporting tragedy. The Lidl-Trek climber was flying in the Giro after podium finishes at Liège, and it could easily have been the best Grand Tour of his career. But bad luck intervened with a terrible crash on a meaningless stage. A forced withdrawal and a farewell to his podium ambitions.

Since that day, the rider from Abruzzo hadn’t pinned a race number on his back — he had completely disappeared, aiming to come back at his best for a second half of the season full of goals. Winning the Clásica San Sebastián was clearly the best possible start, and also a confirmation that this could be a magical year for Ciccone. The field was stacked, with Roglic, Del Toro, Ayuso, Christen, Powless, and many other big names at the start — yet Giulio won, proving himself the strongest twice: on both the penultimate and the final climbs, against two different opponents.

Here’s what he said after crossing the finish line:

“Honestly, I didn’t expect to win right away, but I knew my numbers were good, that I had recovered well, and that we had done a great job with the whole team. Still, two months without racing is a lot, so it’s always hard to expect a result on your return, but I have to say that today my legs were good and we raced really well.

In that moment it was hard to know what to do because there was still a long way to go. But when you’re with a rider like Del Toro, you don’t have many options — you have to keep going and try to play your cards. I’m happy, today I had great legs and I managed to get the most out of it. Winning here is really beautiful because it’s one of my favorite races, I’ve been trying to do well here for a long time, and this was the right opportunity.

That was a bit of a decisive moment because Christen came really strong from behind. I thought Del Toro would attack, but instead I saw he was dropping back, so in that moment I gave it 100%, and from there to the finish it was like holding my breath. Until two kilometers from the end I was afraid because I couldn’t really understand what was happening, but in the final 500 meters, when I saw no one else was coming, I really enjoyed it.”

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