Cunego back in the mountain jersey, Chaves moves back into top-ten, Stage 10 highlight video
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Giulio Ciccone (Bardiani CSF)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Damiano Cunego (Nippo Vini Fantini) in the mountains jersey(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) hit the line(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Bob Jungels (Etixx-Quickstep) in the maglia rosa
Giro d'Italia 2016: stage 10 profile(Image credit: RCS Media Group )
Giulio Ciccone soloed to his first Grand Tour stage win at the Giro d'Italia on Tuesday, winning stage 10 in Sestola by 42 seconds ahead of runner-up Ivan Rovny (Tinkoff) and an additional 40 seconds to third placed Darwin Atapuma (BMC). He thanked his team Bardiani-CSF and dedicated the victory to his grandmother.
"It's a fantastic joy, I have no words to describe it," said Ciccone. "I want to share it with all the people that supported me and my teammates. We're more than a team, we have passionated sponsors who support and believe in young talents, starting from Luca Bardiani, our president. This win is a present for them. I want to spend a special word for Nicola Boem, a real teammate who sacrificed himself to help me and Stefano Pirazzi in the breakaway.
"We have the goal to attack and look for the breakaway since the morning. Me, Pirazzi and Boem founded it. In the finale, me and Stefano played our chances. He feels really good and other teams knew this, he had no much freedom. Our team directors manage the situation very well. On the descent I attacked because I was feared by Cunego. Last kilometers was endless".
"Honestly, for me coming to the Giro has been a surprise, winning just a dream. Day by day I'm learning something, today was the most important lesson. It a great success, but just the first step. I know I have lot of things to learn again and a long road ahead of me.
"This success is dedicated to my grandma Pasqualina who push me from the sky."
Cunego back in the mountain jersey
Damiano Cunego (Nippo-Vini Fantini) moved back into the overall lead of the mountain classification at the Giro d'Italia during stage 10 to Sestola. The Italian picked up one point on the second KOM over Pietracolora, but then took a whopping 35 points when he won the third climb over Pian del Falco. He also finished fifth in the stage.
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Cunego now leads the mountain classification with 56 points ahead of stage winner Guilio Ciccone (Bardiani) with 27 points and Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) with 25 points.
"Today has been a great day of racing, combative, in which at first I fight for the Blue Jersey of King of The Mountain that was the first goal of today," he said in a team press release. "Then I would like also to play my chance for the final victory of the stage, but Ciccone (Bardiani) has been very good. Congratulations to him, but now me and the team, we want to enjoy this wonderful Jersey at Giro d’Italia that we will honor and we will try to keep it as long as possible."
Esteban Chaves back inside top-ten overall
Colombian Esteban Chaves moved back into the Giro's top-ten on general classification after his ninth place on stage 10, as the Orica-GreenEdge rider stole a handful of seconds on his rivals. Chaves, who had dropped from sixth to 13th after the Chianti time trial, crossed the line four seconds ahead of a group containing Rafal Majka, Steven Kruijswijk, Domenico Pozzovivo, Vincenzo Nibali and new maglia rosa Bob Jungels.
"We rode perfectly as team today. All the guys did a great job supporting Esteban (Chaves) going into the final climbs and from then on Esteban did very well to stay controlled and finish up there at the front," sports director Matt White said.
White added that with 11 stages to come, he is pleased what the team has achieved and believes Chaves is well placed for what bodes as an important final week with several testing stages first up the menu.
"We are happy with how things are going for us after ten days of racing. We are in the position we wanted to be in at this stage of the race with another long stage coming up tomorrow," he said.
