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Giulio Ciccone earns third career Giro stage win on summit finish

GC battle shelved on stage before final rest day

Photo by: Sirotti
May 22, 2022
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Twenty-four hours after his Spanish teammate Juanpe Lopez lost the pink jersey, Giulio Ciccone earned his third career Giro d’Italia stage victory on the Sunday before the final rest day. He soloed to victory on Stage 15, lifting himself into the top 20 on GC. It was the third win for an Italian in the 105th edition. Pink jersey wearer Richard Carapaz wasn’t tested.

The Course

The race organizers had stuck three big climbs in the second half of 177 km. First came Cat. 1 Pila-Les Fleurs (12.2 km of 6.9 percent), followed by Cat. 1 Verrogne (13.9 km of 7.1 percent) and the summit finish on the Cat. 2 ascent to Cogne, a climb with long but mildly graded slopes.

It took a while for a breakaway to stick. Carapaz was part of a sizeable crash that also took down double stage winner Simon Yates. After almost 70 km an enormous breakaway formed and by the time it hit the foot of Pila-Les Fleurs, it had a 4:30 gap. Koen Bouwman (The Netherlands/Jumbo-Visma) was second in the KOM competition and he was interested in tipping over first. His acceleration in the final third of Pila-Les Fleurs caused the breakaway to splinter.

Mathieu van der Poel and another rider from the Netherlands bridged over to Bouwman to make a Dutch trio on the valley floor heading to the Verrogne climb. They hit the foot with a 1:30 gap over their former breakmates.

Three chasers bridged over halfway up. First Bouwman and then van der Poel dropped away. Ciccone, the 2019 mountains classification champion, was the main dynamo in the trio that remained. Back in the peloton, UAE-Emirates took over from Ineos Grenadiers, and then 12th place Guillaume Martin skipped away.

Hugh Carthy, who was on the 2020 Vuelta a España final podium, found the Ciccone group to make it a quartet before the summit. On the reverse slope two more reinforcements arrived to form a sextet.

Final Climb

The six riders started the 22.2-km ascent to Cogne with a 5:50 lead over the peloton and a 1:30 advantage on a chasing septet.

Ciccone immediately attacked. Santiago Buitrago and Carthy went along. Buitrago was the first to fade. With 18.8 km to climb Ciccone dropped Carthy. Trek-Segafredo’s man was cheered all the way to the top. The Italian added Sunday’s triumph to stage wins in the 2016 and 2019 editions, whipping his sunglasses into the crowd. Buitrago was runner-up and Antonio Pedrero was third. Guillaume Martin’s efforts vaulted him into the top-10.

The riders get a well-deserved rest on Monday before the challenging final week.


2022 Giro d’Italia Stage 15
1) Giulio Ciccone (Italy/Trek-Segafredo) 4:37:41
2) Santiago Buitrago (Colombia/Bahrain-Victorious) +1:31
3) Antonio Pedrero (Spain/Movistar) +2:19
109) Alex Cataford (Canada/Israel-Premier Tech) 32:21

2022 Giro d’Italia GC
1) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/Ineos Grenadiers) 63:21:28
2) Jai Hindley (Australia/Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:07
3) João Almeida (Portugal/UAE-Emirates) +0:30
97) Alex Cataford (Canada/Israel-Premier Tech) 2:35:05