"The most important races haven't arrived yet" - Cristian Scaroni aims for a top result at European Championships

Far from the most prominent stars of the sport, Cristian Scaroni grew to be the saviour of XDS Astana Team in 2025. The Kazakh WorldTour team was in an unenviable position in the UCI ranking with regards to their future in the cycling's top division. But the team's resurrection this year was incredible, spearheaded by the 27-year-old Italian who has already surpassed the 2.000 points bareer in September.

One of his more recent exploits was a 2nd place at the GP Industria & Artigianato (1.Pro). "In the races in Tuscany," Scaroni tells bici.pro, "as well as at the Pantani and Matteotti, I saw that my condition is good. I think I can improve further, especially since I'm coming from a period at altitude preparing for the last two months of racing."

"After the Giro I was a bit tired. Everything had been going well until the crash at Strade Bianche," he recounted the steratto race where he suffered a broken collarbone. "Recovering from that injury was difficult because I pushed so hard to be ready for the next races. At the end of the Giro I got sick. I tried to recover for the Giro dell'Appennino and the Italian National Championships, but I had a relapse."

Thus it took until the later parts of July for Scaroni to return to racing. And he did so in style. "The only thing missing was a victory, but I was always present, often finishing in the top 10 and reaching the podium several times."

At this point there's only a month of racing left on the European scene and for Astana, the rescue mission was already successful. The Kazakh team still sits 4th overall in this year's UCI ranking and 16th in the cumulative three-year ranking with more than 3.000-point cushion over 19th Cofidis.

This gives Scaroni freedom to focus on some bigger goals to round off the season: "The most important races haven't arrived yet: the European Championship and the Lombardy are in my sights."

With four victories in 2025, Scaroni is XDS Astana's winning-most rider alongside Harold Martín López, but thanks to a Giro stage win, he tops his Ecuadorian teammate by a small margin. The only blot on Scaroni's 2025 record is that he would've liked to have won even more races as there were at least ten occasions when he came close (finished on a podium).

"If you had told me at the start of the season that I would win four races, including a stage at the Giro, I would have signed up," he admitted without as much of a thought. "It's true that victories are very few compared to the fifteen podiums, but I often finished behind UAE riders. We know how dominant they are at the moment. Del Toro won all the September races in Italy, more or less as Hirschi did a year ago."

Scaroni says that racing in Kigali was an option, but national coach Marco Villa came up with a more interesting plan that will see Cristian Scaroni take up a leadership role at the European Championships in Ardeche. This will also happen to be the first time Scaroni will wear the national jersey since 2022 when it was his lifeline to keep the professional dream alive after disbanding of Gazprom.

"I will forever be grateful to the Federation and the coach at the time, Daniele Bennati. They gave me a great opportunity and the chance to get back into the game. Without them, I wouldn't be here dreaming of a European call-up (the only thing missing is the official announcement, ed.). Wearing this jersey again would be a source of pride. I'm superstitious, so I won't make any predictions until it's official."