"I trained with the people I've always seen on TV" - Giulio Pellizzari pinching himself after first Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe camp
Cycling
After a breakthrough campaign in 2024, Giulio Pellizzari has earned himself a World Tour move for 2025 at Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe. Following his first training camp at his new team though, the 21-year-old Italian was left pinching himself at his company on the training rides.
"I trained with the people I've always seen on TV," says the former VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizanè prodigy in quotes collected by Bici Pro about his eye opening experience. "Since I was in the group of climbers. There were the various Primoz Roglic, Jai Hindley, Daniel Martinez and Aleksandr Vlasov. We laugh and joke anyway, they are normal people."
Compared to the Bardiani set up, Pellizzari is also already noticing a real step up, not only in the level at Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, but also in the mentality. "Compared to Bardiani there is another way of having fun, more adult. Here at Red Bull the riders all have children, at Reverberi we were a group of eighteen-year-olds always laughing," he explains. "This is also part of growing up."
After starring at the Giro d'Italia in 2024, the Italian isn't set to ride his home Grand Tour next year. "Roglic spoke to me a bit when he found out I would be among the reserves for the Giro d'Italia. He told me not to worry that I have a long career ahead of me and to take things slowly. At my age, he hadn't even gotten on a bike yet," Pellizzari says of the situation. "On one hand, I'm certainly sorry, but it's still the team's choice and I respect it. Everyone has their own program. I spoke with Gasparotto and he told me that doing the Giro with Roglic would be a risk because there's a lot of attention and pressure around the team. For a twenty-year-old, it might not be easy to be a domestique in a situation like that. On the other hand, I was included in the Vuelta team."
"Also, the team chose this Grand Tour for two reasons: the first is to have less pressure," he adds, previewing a Vuelta a Espana debut. "The second is because I could have more freedom. Racing with Roglic means working 100 percent for him. It's a guarantee: wherever he goes, he does well and wins.
"I think that when I grow up I want to be a winning rider. To do that, this was the right step to take," concludes the 21-year-old. "Trying to be a winning athlete and winning a Grand Tour also means taking a step like this. I'm sure that if I go strong I'll have my chances and I think I'm in the right team. Here they can give me the right support, if they bet on a rider they do it 100 percent."
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- i don’t know nearly as much about bruyneel or hincapie as most of us do about lance, but we judge people by the company they keep. i hand no idea what psychological problems the other two have, but there’s gotta be something pretty severely wrong with them if they continue to choose to be close to armstrong.OCexile26-12-2024
- Ayuso and Rodriguez are only 22 and 23. Don't pressure it as they're still so sooo young.
James2631826-12-2024 - Not sure that can be true, in that USA Cycling is part of the UCI.acem8226-12-2024
- Oh, and yes: I am no psychiatrist/psychologist, but Bruyneel and Texas Turd are both sociopaths. It goes well beyond "protect my world and anyone would" that is the usual zeitgeist of their bullshit. No normal person has Bob Roll go at Greg Lemond with an audio recording device at Ron Keifel's bike shop...for example.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Funnier: this website keeps giving credo to their ramblings. In this case, why in any possible way would Boonen want to create a fantasy world to attach himself to these two clowns when more likely he would want to forget he was even there? Laughable.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- A sociopath is an informal term used to describe someone with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a mental health condition characterized by a chronic pattern of disregard for social norms, laws, and the rights and feelings of others.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Rowe spent his whole career on one team being nothing more than a thug for Skyneos. I have no idea why another team would want import this type of person into their program.Sweep26-12-2024
- “CyclingUpToDate would like to extend it's condolences to family and friends of Pascal.” Paging a copy editor….menk26-12-2024
- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024