2nd behind Tadej Pogacar 'almost as good as a victory' for Giulio Ciccone at Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025: "I knew I didn’t have the legs to follow him"

Tadej Pogacar was quite simply on another level to the rest of the race at Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025 on Sunday afternoon in the Ardennes. Behind the Slovenian though, there was an intense fight for second place, one that eventually went the way of Lidl-Trek's Giulio Ciccone.

Ahead of the Monument, much of the talk regarding the Lidl-Trek team at Liege-Bastogne-Liege was regarding Amstel Gold Race winner Mattias Skjelmose and Belgian prodigy Thibau Nys, allowing Ciccone, fresh from a solid showing at the Tour of the Alps to come into the race somewhat under the radar. There were no signs of fatigue for the Italian though and he led the chase of Pogacar in the finale, coming to the line alongside Ben Healy and eventually winning the sprint for 2nd place at the line.

"It was really hard, especially the first part. I was a bit tired after Tour of Alps but in the last 2 hours my feeling was much better and I really enjoyed the racing," reflected the 30-year-old Italian in post-race comments posted to his Lidl-Trek team's official website afterwards. "Liege is one of my favourite races and I’m really happy to be on the podium. I think we, as a team, did everything perfectly. We had a plan and we raced in the perfect way. Always in position and we played our cards in the best way."

Because of Pogacar's dominance, Ciccone is more than content to settle for 2nd place, his best ever result at a Monument, improving on a 3rd placed finish at Il Lombardia from 2024, where Pogacar also took the victory. "Finishing second behind Pogacar, I don’t want to say it’s like a victory, but it’s definitely a good feeling in the end," Ciccone concludes his assessment. "I knew I didn’t have the legs to follow him when he went so I just tried to mange my effort in the best way possible."