Tour de Suisse revelation Matthew Riccitello: "Since I've been cycling I wanted to ride at this level"

Much of the Israel - Premier Tech roster seem to be an uprise, but after the surprising heroics of Derek Gee at the Dauphiné, nobody would have guessed his younger teammate Matthew Riccitello would also level up his game at Tour de Suisse.

Unlike Gee, Riccitello's performance certainly didn't come out of blue. The 22-year-old American was on the radar for the first time with his 11th place on Monte Lussari, in the final 2023 Giro d'Italia mountain time trial. Then he went to on to nearly win Tour de l'Avenir in August to wrap up his first year among pros.

The beginning of 2024 found the American climber in a great spot, immediately battling it out for a top 10 at the UAE Tour to come less than 15 second short due to his weaker time trial. After that couple nice results came for Riccitello (such as 10th at the Mercan'Tour Classic or 13th overall at Giro d'Abruzzo) but what we have seen at Tour de Suisse was by far the best of the pocket climber's short professional career so far.

Riccitello finished fifth in the general classifcation after a solid mountain time trial where he clocked 4th time, putting within the sight of overall podium. "Today it was good again. Maybe I started a little too fast. I was just very ambitious, I wanted to go up or take the white. But hey, it was still strong. I'm just really happy with this week, since I've been cycling I wanted to ride at this level of classifications. That's really cool and gives motivation," said the youngster from Israel - Premier Tech afterwards.