"Maybe I'll aim for mountains jersey also at Vuelta" - Lorenzo Fortunato prepares to tackle a valued Giro-Vuelta double

XDS Astana Team continued to race on a high also at the 2025 Giro d'Italia. The team's ambition, as declared before the race, was to hunt for stages and the riders of Kazakh formation never lost sight of that goal. They were ultimately rewarded for their efforts in stage 16 through Christian Scaroni, but their biggest star was undoubtedly that day's runner-up: Lorenzo Fortunato.

With an overwhelming dominance, the 29-year-old Italian was a known winner of the King of Mountains classification with few stages still left to complete, securing himself a spot on the podium in Rome in few days' advance.

"I'm very happy, that was my goal for this Giro. I won this blue jersey, the team won a stage, so I'm very happy," said Fortunato in an interview with organizer after the last stage.

Importantly for Astana, the KoM jersey comes with 180 UCI points, but Fortunato's season doesn't end here, just like the mission of whole Astana, despite moving up to 17th spot in the rankings. What does the calendar look like for Fortunato? "Later in the season, I'm also going to do La Vuelta, maybe I'll also aim for the mountains jersey, we'll see. But for now, I'm going to enjoy myself, before going to the Tour de Suisse."

The Italian looks also a bit further ahead and it's clear that he'd like to prove himself as a GC rider and finally make it into a Grand Tour top-10 (previous best result is 12th at 2024 Giro). "When I turned professional, my first ambition was to compete in the general classification, maybe that will be my goal next year," he explained.