Pellizzari makes 'mental step' before Giro: 'This is what I was missing'

The Tour of the Alps is a useful gauge of the work done to this point on the road to the Giro d’Italia, and Giulio Pellizzari has reason to be satisfied with his efforts thus far. He had been stationed atop Mount Teide in recent weeks, and he saw the fruits of his labours here at Val Martello, winning the six-man sprint to claim stage 2.

“The last few weeks in Tenerife, with Jai Hindley, we had a lot of fun because every road sign was a sprint between us,” Pellizzari smiled when he took a seat in the press room afterwards. “I even beat him a few times, and I thought of that in the final kilometre today.”

Pellizzari had already impressed this season with third overall at a punchy edition of Tirreno-Adriatico. The appeal of the Tour of the Alps, as the name suggests, is the promise of a climbing test, but it was ultimately Pellizzari’s explosiveness that won the day here.

The Italian had attacked with intent near the summit of Val Martello, and when he was pinned back by an impressive Egan Bernal (Ineos), he turned his attention to the reduced sprint. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammates Aleksandr Vlasov and Lorenzo Finn helped to tee him up, and Pellizzari’s finishing speed did the rest. 

“The long climbs are my bread and butter, so I felt good even if I didn’t have my best sensations, but today I didn’t really want to test myself, I just wanted to survive,” said Pellizzari, who had come after his young teammate Finn had triggered the aggression in the front group. “I saw the rhythm was high, and I suffered a lot, but it worked out well.

Pellizzari has history with the Tour of the Alps, first catching the eye here as a neo-pro in 2023 and following up with another assured display twelve months later. “It has a special meaning, it’s the race that ‘launched’ me, so to speak,” said Pellizzari. 

Much has changed in his cycling life in the intervening period. Shortly after his last appearance, he enjoyed the breakout Giro d’Italia that moved to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at the start of 2025. His debut WorldTour season yielded sixth-place finishes at both the Giro and Vuelta a España, as well as a stage win in the latter, and his status at Red Bull has grown accordingly.

Next month, Pellizzari will line up alongside Hindley as Red Bull’s co-leader at the Giro, and he acknowledged that he is beginning to grow into the role, citing Tirreno-Adriatico as an example. Although Pellizzari had every reason to be pleased with second overall behind an on-form Isaac del Toro, he confessed to frustration when he looked back at the race. 

“I think maybe it’s a mental step,” he said. “After Tirreno, I was happy, but not super happy. I was more sad, because I didn’t win. That means a lot for me because in the last years, this is what I was missing a bit, this winning mentality. 

“Today when I was there, I was just thinking ‘I want to win.’ I didn’t want to win by three minutes; I just wanted to cross the line first. And this is the biggest step I’ve made in the last period.”

Pellizzari was carrying additional motivation for this Tour of the Alps. Although he hails from Camerino in the Marche, where he delighted his home tifosi at Tirreno, he also has links to this corner of the world. His girlfriend, the Vini Fantini-BePink rider Andrea Casagranda, hails from Trentino and he dedicated his victory at Val Martello to her father, Stefano, who died last October after a long illness.

Stefano Casagranda was latterly the president of the Veloce Club Borgo amateur team, having raced as a professional for eight years, winning a stage of his home race, then called the Giro del Trentino, back in 1998.

“I wasn’t even born then, but I knew he won here,” Pellizzari said. “I thought of him a lot over the last month before this race, and I wanted to dedicate a win to him.”