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James Piccoli is runner-up in the Tour du Rwanda

A consistent week leads to Canadian's best performance for Israel Start-up Nation

Photo by: Sirotti

Canadian James Piccoli enjoyed his best performance with Israel Start-up Nation this week, coming second place in Sunday’s final stage of the eight-stage Tour du Rwanda to nail down the runner-up spot on GC. On Sunday Piccoli pulled back the second spot from Jhonatan Restrepo, who nicked it after Saturday’s time trial.

Piccoli was consistent through the eight stages, finishing in the top-7 five times. He came seventh on Friday’s queen stage, one that ended with a 1.3 km climb of 8.8 percent in Kigali.

With Elevate-KHS, Piccoli won the 2018 Tour de Beauce and 2019 Tour of the Gila. He also placed second in the 2019 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah after taking a stage.

In the only other stage race he finished this season, Piccoli was 29th in the 2.1-rated Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali.

Israel Start-up Nation was the only WorldTour team in the race. There were three Pro Teams racing, including race winner Cristián Rodríguez’s Team Total Direct Energie.

Rwanda is the favourite to host the 2025 UCI Road World Championships.

2021 Tour du Rwanda Stage 8
1) Cristián Rodríguez (Spain/Team Total Direct Energie) 2:05:06
2) James Piccoli (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +0:12
3) Nahom Zerai (Eritrea) +0:14

2021 Tour du Rwanda Final GC
1) Cristián Rodríguez (Spain/Team Total Direct Energie) 22:49:51
2) James Piccoli (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +0:17
3) Alex Hoehn (USA/Wildlife Generation Pro Cycling) +0:50