'It wasn’t the plan' - Ciccone on the attack as Vuelta hits high mountains

Stage 6 saw the Vuelta a España tackle the high mountains for the first time, with a summit finish at Pal in Andorra. While Jay Vine UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was up the road taking the stage win and Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) rode into the leader’s maillot rojo, the GC battle behind them was a cagey one.

Despite the earlier climbs, a large peloton made its way out of Andorra La Vella and onto the 9.6km ascent to Pal, where the pace was high but not fast enough to make a dent in Vine’s five-minute advantage. However, when Lidl-Trek came to the front, that began to change and it was inevitable that their lead climber Giulio Ciccone was about to make his move.

When he did, only Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) was able to follow, and the pair quickly opened up a gap which briefly seemed as though it might last the remaining 2km to the line. In the end, their move stalled and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) brought them back. Ultimately, Ciccone’s move made no difference, but the Italian laid down a marker, letting the rest of the peloton know he intends to continue the race as he started it. 

“It wasn't the plan, but I felt good on the penultimate climb, then we decided to give it a try, to see how things would go,” Ciccone told Eurosport. “I know the climb well because I did a training camp there just before the Vuelta. But I think the climb was too fast, you can save a lot of watts in the slipstream, but it was a good test in the end.

“I was pretty sure Jonas would be good, and Almeida has also shown that he is very strong, it’s still hard to say, because it was much easier on the wheel than at the front. I was impressed with Jonas on his wheel, he was going very fast.”

After a stellar year, Lidl-Trek have been the most aggressive team so far at this year’s Vuelta. While they were nowhere in the opening day’s sprint, on day two Ciccone lit up the final, finishing second behind Vingegaard. Mads Pedersen was well beaten the next day, but the team rode all day for his second place. They did much of the work on stage 4 too, only for Pedersen to be out of contention in the bunch kick into Voiron, then they put on a strong performance to take third in the team time trial.

Neither Ciccone or Pedersen have yet taken a stage win, but the Dane holds the green jersey as the points classification leader, and it’s in their nature to keep trying to not only animate the race, but to win stages. “I think it's going to be tough, but I'm happy with my form and that of the team. We'll continue like this,” Ciccone concluded.