“Purely out of spite” - Robbie McEwen points finger after Einer Rubio drags Giulio Ciccone into Lidl-Trek Giro grudge

Sprint legend and expert analyst Robbie McEwen has accused Einer Rubio of acting “purely out of spite” after the Movistar Team rider’s Passo Falzarego move sparked a furious Giro d’Italia flashpoint with Giulio Ciccone during stage 19.

Ciccone had spent much of the queen stage fighting to strengthen his grip on the maglia azzurra, picking up mountain points as the breakaway took on a brutal day in the Dolomites. But on the Passo Falzarego, just as the Lidl-Trek rider accelerated towards the summit, Rubio surged past him to take the points instead.

The move immediately lit up the front of the race. Ciccone turned towards Rubio, shook his head and gestured angrily as the pair continued over the top, with TNT Sports commentator Rob Hatch capturing the mood from the commentary box.

“A little look around from Ciccone. ‘What are you playing at?’ A little shake of the head, and he’s not happy,” Hatch said on TNT Sports commentary.

The incident carried extra heat because Rubio was not a central threat to Ciccone in the mountains classification. Ciccone remained in the maglia azzurra fight, while Rubio’s move looked, to McEwen, like something rooted in the wider breakaway politics between Movistar and Lidl-Trek.

The former sprinter suggested Rubio may have been responding to an earlier move involving Ciccone’s team-mate Derek Gee-West, rather than targeting Ciccone purely for the points. “Well, your team-mate Derek Gee-West did it to me, so I’m doing it back to your team via you,” McEwen said, imagining Rubio’s possible reasoning.

He then made his own verdict clear. “It was purely out of spite,” McEwen said. “There wasn’t a way for him to do it back to Derek Gee-West so he chose the next best thing: get back at the team. But it’s at the cost of Giulio Ciccone.”

That gave the argument a sharper edge than a routine summit sprint dispute. Rubio had denied Ciccone points in a classification battle that could still matter, while Ciccone was left furious at a rider he clearly believed had gone against the spirit of how the breakaway had been unfolding.

Ciccone’s reaction was visible almost immediately. After the KOM sprint, the Italian did not hide his anger, and Hatch warned that the race had been turned into something more combustible with a 20-kilometre descent still to come. “Get your popcorn out. It’s all happening at the Giro d’Italia,” Hatch said. “A 20km descent coming up and they’ve lit the blue touch paper.”

McEwen also warned about the danger of letting anger carry into a technical downhill section. “The red mist has just descended for Giulio Ciccone,” he said. “Got to be careful riding on that sort of anger, technical descent. It’s got to be controlled aggression.”

Ciccone later said he had not expected Rubio’s move. The Italian had been riding with the maglia azzurra in mind, but also saw stage victory as possible from the breakaway before Sepp Kuss eventually caught and passed him on the final climb to win in Alleghe.

“I think he was upset because he wanted the points,” Ciccone told reporters after the stage. “But it was also a game for the GC contenders who were looking for time. So he was angry at me as if it was my fault. But on the KOM point, I trusted him, and then he did an unfortunate move.”

“It’s a shame, I didn’t want any anxiety there,” he added. “I just wasn’t expecting it and I didn’t fully really understand what happened with Rubio. But the plan in my head was to do this full gas because I knew it was a potential victory today.”

Rubio’s own version, given elsewhere after the stage, was that Lidl-Trek had not kept their word over how the breakaway’s prizes would be divided, accusing them of playing smart and taking both. That turned an already tense on-road exchange into a proper post-stage war of words.

Ciccone finished third on the stage behind Kuss and Gee-West, but the Falzarego incident may still linger beyond the argument itself. After stage 19, Ciccone remained in control of the maglia azzurra standings, but his lead over Jonas Vingegaard was only 57 points. With another major mountain stage still to come, every missed point could yet become relevant if the maglia rosa decides to chase more stage success.

Hatch pointed directly to that risk as the drama unfolded. “If Jonas Vingegaard is to do his stuff at the Giro d’Italia today or tomorrow, that incident right there might get in the way of Ciccone taking the King of the Mountain competition,” he said.

Ciccone still left stage 19 with the blue jersey lead and a major haul of mountain points from the day. Yet the Rubio clash turned his queen stage into something more volatile than a simple classification gain.

Kuss took the stage, Vingegaard kept pink, and Ciccone strengthened his hold on blue. But the image of the Italian shaking his head at Rubio on Passo Falzarego may prove one of the defining flashpoints of the Giro’s final mountain block.