"It will be hard, though, because Jonas Vingegaard is quite close" - Giulio Ciccone saves KOM jersey but remains focused

Giulio Ciccone has had a perfect storm of events keeping him in the KOM jersey after the Tour de France's queen stage. The lead is small, but the Lidl - Trek rider continues to hold on to it with only one mountain stage left.

"It’s been a good outcome for the stage. Today we just focused on following our plan and go full gas for the KOM points in the first three climbs," the Italian said in a post-race interview. "Skjelmose did great job, he put me in the breakaway and I had good legs. I spent almost everything chasing points in the first three climbs, so I decided to ride the final climb just saving energy."

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Ciccone managed to bring many points from those early day climbs, boosting his score. However then on the Col de la Loze, the ascent with the most points on offer in the whole race, he couldn't stick with the front riders anymore. But luckily for him, his breakaway companions managed to hold off Jonas Vingegaard from taking the main score. Felix Gall instead jumped to second and both are close, but having distributed the points between both saw Ciccone on top at the end of the day.

88 points on his bank, whilst Gall has 82 and Vingegaard has 81. Stage 20 into Le Markstein will feature plenty ascents where his classification will be decided. "We are close to winning the Mountains classification now. It will be hard, though, because Jonas Vingegaard is quite close. Yet I am going to focus on recovery and then think of strategy for the next few days," he concluded.

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