Ciccone frozen out of pink in brutal Giro stage: 'Not the best day to wear my first maglia rosa'

With a team built primarily around Jonathan Milan for the sprints, and with Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) being the team’s protected GC card, it was always going to be a challenge for Giulio Ciccone to defend the maglia rosa if a strong breakaway went clear.

In the end, that proved to be the case, with Eulálio starting the day 1:11 behind the Ciccone, and with the added element of constant rainfall, it turned into one of the most attritional days on the bike in the 31-year-old Italian’s career. 

“In the end, I think it was not the best day to wear my first maglia rosa,” Ciccone told TNT Sports. “It was one of the hardest and nervous days of my life on the bike, even for the weather, which was really crazy sometimes."

“I think we had everything, rain, everything, so I really suffered from the cold, and I think you can also see my face.”

Despite the disappointment of losing the jersey after one stage, Ciccone remained realistic, and he admitted that he knew it was a possible outcome when looking at the bigger picture of the team’s ambitions. 

“Yeah, it was really cold, and it’s like this. " As I said already this morning, we are here without the team to control, to defend this jersey,” explained Ciccone. 

“So I said already yesterday, for sure in my head, I really want to keep it more, but this was a possibility today. 
We have a super strong team for the sprints for Johnny [Milan], so it's like this. 

Ciccone didn’t concede the jersey without a fight, as he went to the front of the peloton with around 40km remaining. With Arrieta and Eulálio three minutes ahead, it meant that the Italian needed to close around two minutes to defend the jersey, and had to take the matter into his own hands.

At one point, Gee-West joined his teammate at the front, and they engaged in a brief conversation before the Canadian champion moved back in the peloton. 

In the end, Ciccone and Gee-West finished in the peloton 7:13 behind stage winner Igor Arrieta and 7:11 behind Eulálio, who took second and the maglia rosa. 

Ciccone acknowledged the tricky predicament of his teammate and insisted that Gee-West has high GC aspirations, meaning it was important that he didn’t expend energy in Ciccone’s maglia rosa defence in the final 40km. 

“I just said to say thanks to him [Gee-West] because he's here with big ambition of GC and he's also helping a lot in the stage, give me support, food, rain jackets and of course, I cannot ask to him to pull or do something, because, like I say, he's here to to do something really good on GC,’ said Ciccone.