Giro d’Italia: Ganna prepared to pass pink jersey to Geraint Thomas on Mount Etna

AGRIGENTO ITALY OCTOBER 04 Start Filippo Ganna of Italy and Team INEOS Grenadiers Pink Leader Jersey Santuario Maria SS DellAlto Alcamo Village during the 103rd Giro dItalia 2020 Stage 2 a 149km stage from Alcamo to Agrigento 243m girodiitalia Giro on October 04 2020 in Agrigento Italy Photo by Tim de WaeleGetty Images
Filippo Ganna of Team INEOS Grenadiers in Pink Leader Jersey at start stage 2 (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

The celebration at the hotel in Isola delle Femmine on Saturday evening was called "something very sober" by Filippo Ganna. The first maglia rosa of the 2020 Giro d’Italia gathered his Ineos Grenadiers teammates and staff outside the Saracen Sands Hotel in the carpark – physical distancing had it so – when he returned from his media duties at the stage finish in Palermo.

“We have 20 stages – well, 19 now – ahead of us and we can’t exaggerate,” Ganna said after successfully defending his jersey in Agrigento on stage 2. “We toasted together as a team in the carpark of the hotel and we congratulated one another. Geraint [Thomas] said he was proud of me and I have to say I’m just as proud to have a leader like that and a team like this to support me.”

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Barry Ryan
Head of Features

Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.