"They don't want me up there" - Giulio Ciccone purposefully drops out of Giro GC so as to be allowed to chase stage win

Giulio Ciccone came into the 2026 Giro d'Italia looking to hunt stages and potentially the KOM classification. After a strong first few days in the race, the Italian found himself in the pink jersey, motivating him to stay high up in the standings. However after this Saturday's stage, the Italian pulled the plug on any GC plan, and has lost time so he can go on to chase his main goal.

Although it must be said that by climbing onto the podium with the maglia rosa, Ciccone achieved one of the main goals of his career. But on stage 5, the rainy weather and climbing nature of the race, Lidl-Trek were not able to control the breakaway that led to Afonso Eulálio's move into the race lead.

Ciccone didn't drop out of GC, as the summit finish to Blockhaus was both a local climb to him, and one where he tested his current form against his main rivals. But on stage 8, he was not given freedom to join the breakaway of over 30 riders. Eulálio himself responded to Ciccone's moves on the first climb of the day, confirming there was a specific order not to let him go.

“Yeah, in the end I tried different times, but I was too close in GC," Ciccone said in a post-race interview. "Visma, and also the [pink] jersey they don't want me up there".

Hence Ciccone stayed in the peloton, helped Derek Gee who will continue carrying Lidl-Trek's overall classification ambitions, and then took it easy on the final climb so as to purposefully shed some minutes at the finish line.

“I tried to do my best for Derek [Gee-West], and I took it easy on the last kick. So let’s see, from tomorrow we start a new Giro".

With 9:42 minutes of disadvantage over Afonso Eulálio and around 6 down on Jonas Vingegaard, the Italian might finally get the freedom he looked for today, in order to try and capture a fourth Giro stage win.