Giulio Ciccone: "Finishing second behind Roglic is a sweet defeat"

Giulio Ciccone has been showing great form at Tirreno-Adriatico and he was very close to a win today at the queen stage. A strong performance by the Trek - Segafredo rider has seen him only beaten by Primoz Roglic in the finale.

"With a cool mind, and especially looking to who beat me, I accept the result with more serenity: finishing second behind Roglic is a sweet defeat," Ciccone said in a press release. "I feel really good, the condition is there and I think I proved it. I really thank my teammates because they did an amazing job all the day. Everything went as I wanted. In short, we just narrowly missed the full result, but I think we can be satisfied."

The Italian rider answered the attack of Enric Mas towards the end and looked very strong. However the key to the stage was in the final sprint. The explosive climber had the legs to go for it in the end however, but was just barely beaten by Primoz Roglic who returned to the head of the race due to the headwind which blocked the attacks.

"The weather today made the day really tough and affected the stage in a consistent way from start to finish. We took the last climb with a select but still dense group, and until the last kilometer there was no way to make a real difference: headwind was too strong and the climb not so steep to make further selection," he explained. "There was a lot of control, everyone were hesitating to attack because the risk of making a wasteful effort was strong."

"Tomorrow, in my opinion, will be the toughest stage of this Tirreno-Adriatico. The general classification is very tight, surely something will happen: we will also be in the game," he concluded. He goes into the final hilly stage 24 seconds down on Roglic, 9th in the overall classification.