First pro win comes at very special timing for Stefano Oldani

Alpecin-Fenix are riding towards a big win tally at the Giro d'Italia, where today Stefano Oldani emerged victorious from an hilly day with a very emotional win.

He had shown the quality to go for a stage win at Mount Etna earlier in the race, aswell as the consistency over the last few years to get his debut win. That win came today, "but it certainly wasn't easy" Oldani said. After he managed to get himself in the day's breakaway alongside Mathieu van der Poel and Oscar Riesebeek, Alpecin-Fenix had a good position to fight for the stage win - although most would assume it would be with van der Poel.

"His presence was crucial," he said of the Dutchman. Oldani made his move towards the top of La Colletta together with Gijs Leemreize, bridging across to Lorenzo Rota who had made a move earlier. "We knew that if we were with more riders than just Mathieu, they would look at him. That was an opportunity for other guys in our squad. And we did that," Oldani pointed out - with a successful approach.

In Genova, Oldani grabbed his first pro win, with an impressive performance. It was a narrow win, having beaten Lorenzo Rota at the sprint: "I know Lorenzo Rota well, he is a friend of mine. So I knew that he was also fast and that I had to be careful."

He went onto describing how he's taken the win: "The other boy [Gijs Leemreize] wanted to anticipate, we saw that coming. That made it not easy to manage, but I managed it anyway," Oldani said of the final sprint where he was the fastest of the trio.