Filippo Ganna targets three Giro wins as he chases career milestone

“Now it’s my turn,” Ganna said to Gazetta dello Sport, as the race resumed after its second rest day.

The course is flat, fast and familiar, the kind of road where Ganna has often thrived. He starts as one of the leading favourites for the stage, although the threat of rain could make conditions more complicated.

“I knew that at the start I would not find much terrain suited to me,” he said. “I knew I had to get to this time trial, my first big objective. Very fast, on roads I know well.”

Yet Ganna’s Giro ambition is not limited to one day against the clock. He is thinking bigger, with the target of reaching ten career stage wins in the race.

“I am aiming for three and to reach ten,” he said. “I have been thinking about this for a while. I do not know whether I will manage it, but you can be sure I will try.”

One target already stands out: Friday’s finish in Verbania, close to home for the Piedmont rider.

“I have naturally marked the day with the finish in Verbania, practically my home,” Ganna said.

The 29-year-old arrived at the Giro after a spring that brought both satisfaction and frustration. He won Dwars door Vlaanderen, his first Belgian classic, but left Milan Sanremo and Paris Roubaix with unfinished business. Looking back, he was blunt about Sanremo.

“At Sanremo, I messed up,” he said. “I used Tirreno Adriatico to lose weight for the Classicissima, and I arrived tired. I started two kilos below my normal weight. Mistakes not to repeat.”

Roubaix, he insisted, was different. “At Roubaix, in terms of sensations, I felt good. I was unlucky,” he said. “I will go back until I win it once. Then, that’s enough.”

Ganna also has one eye on July. After the Giro, he is expected to race the Tour de France, where he will chase a stage win that would give him at least one victory in each of the three Grand Tours.

“Maybe in July you could see the best Filippo,” he said.

The time trial remains central to his identity, even if Remco Evenepoel has become the benchmark in recent years. Ganna has no intention of accepting second place as his ceiling.

“Winning a third world time trial title is on the list of things I want to do,” he said. “Remco is the man to beat and I will work to do it.”

There is also a sense of calm around him. Two years after his emotional Giro time trial win in Desenzano, ahead of Tadej Pogacar, Ganna says he is better at keeping perspective.

“If I win, I rejoice,” he said. “If I lose, I try to understand where the others were better. Without negative thoughts that can condition performance.”