Dauphiné, last stage to Giulio Ciccone: “Now the wedding, then the Tour”. Final victory to Vingegaard

Julius Ciccone is already in Tour form. The Abruzzo della Trek-Segafredo won the eighth and final stage of the Criterium of the Dauphiné with arrival at the Bastille fort, above Grenoble. An action born from afar, finished on the last climb, the Col de Porte, and finalized on the terrible final ramp, with sections at 20%. The Abruzzese, who thus reaches 10 hits in his career, imposed himself with 23” up Vingegaard and 33” on Adam Yates. The 28-year-old from Chieti also won the climbers’ jersey and finished in 11th place in the general classification. Final success, with an enormous advantage over the second, for Vingegaard: Adam Yates finished at 2’23”, O’Connor third at 2’56”. If the Dauphiné was the dress rehearsal for the Tour de France, which starts on July 1st in Bilbao, Vingegaard can be said to be fully satisfied.

“A nice victory after difficult months”

“A victory is always nice but here, with this atmosphere, I think it’s even more beautiful” the first words of Ciccone. “It’s been a tough few months with crashes and covid, so I started this Dauphiné not in my best shape, but I think at the end of the week my form went up. I’m really happy and ready for my next race, the tricolors and then the Tour. I took risks on the last descent and on the last climb I pushed full throttle knowing that the finish line was right there. You just try to push, push, push and I think with all the people that were there it was a little bit easier to do. I was honestly just thinking about pushing, pushing full throttle. Sometimes I was just focused on the road and said ‘ok, I’ll get to the right corner and from there I’ll close my eyes and go full throttle to the finish’. The king of the mountains shirt is really nice, it’s one of my favorite shirts but if I have to be honest, this week, I never thought about that ranking. Campenaerts was also with us in the break today, so he took his points and I just passed the peaks. I was just thinking about the stage. For the Tour de France my goal is always the same. I would really like to win a stage in the Tour and I really like this jersey.”

After missing the Giro due to Covid, Ciccone focused his energies on the Tour. But first, next June 21st, the marriage with Annabruna. “This year the Giro was in my plans, but you know that Covid called me out then I had about 10 days without a bike, so my conditions weren’t 100%. I started right here in the Dauphiné to prepare for the Tour and now I’m sure I’m fine. I’m happy to have closed these eight days with a victory. Next week I’m getting married, this victory is for her, for my future wife”.

Chaos at the women’s Tour of the Pyrenees, the stage is not done

Shocking what happened to the Women’s Tour of the Pyrenees. The third and final stage of the event did not run: on the evening of the Saturday fraction, won by Martha Horses, a vote was held among the teams on the opportunity to continue the race, ruined above all during the first stage by very serious shortcomings in terms of safety. The athletes of 17 out of 24 teams voted to stop the race, only 7 voted to continue. And the managers present were 9 in favor and 9 against, he reports Adam Hansen, president of the Cpa, in a letter. This is the note from the International Cycling Union: “To maintain the safety of the athletes, the UCI has taken the decision to stop. After having consulted the main interested parties of the event, including Cpa women, Cpacycling, teams, commissioners and the organizing committee, the race will not go ahead, the classifications and the results obtained at the end of yesterday’s stage will be made official”.

Dauphiné, Vingegaard against everyone in the direction of the Tour. Pogacar interested spectator

by Cosimo Cito

04 June 2023