Matthew Riccitello couldn't be happier than to be at his first ever Tour de France – as the American climber puts it, "it's lived up to the hype" – but he also knows he is in his own race against time to be in absolute top condition for the mountain stages to come.
Early on stage 3, Riccitello was one of the victims of a mass crash involving a lot of different riders including Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and double 2025 Tour stage winner Thymen Arensman (Netcompany Ineos).
Like Arensman last year, the Decathlon CMA CGM racer will be looking to shine on the mountain stages, but with the sole goal of helping team leader and GC contender Paul Seixas. And as Riccitello told Cyclingnews before stage 11, following his fall even before the race had left Catalunya, the top priority right now is to get back to top condition before the major mountain stages of this coming weekend.
"I haven't felt quite like myself since the fall on the third stage, but I'm feeling better and better, and yesterday I started to have some positive feelings, so hopefully it just continues this way," Riccitello said.
"I knew I was feeling good coming into the race and that form doesn't just disappear, so, I think for sure that I had a little bit of percentage taken off.
"But it's not like it's gone and will never come back, so I just have to be patient and wait and but yeah, already I was feeling better yesterday" – on stage 10 through the Massif Central – "so it should be all good and I'll be able to be there for Paul in the high mountains."
The good news for Riccitello is that on stages 11 and 12, the sprinters are coming to the fore, with Olav Kooij already securing a victory at Pau for the team, easing the collective pressure of expectations, and taking second in Nevers. On Thursday in Chalon-sur-Saône, there may be more to come on that front.
Riccitello's responsibilities in such stages is minimal. "There's not much I can do in the leadout for Olav," he says with a slight grin given his out-and-out climber's physique, "it's not in my characteristics, so for sure I can just look forward to the coming days." And in the meantime, try to recover some more for the challenges to come.
Be it mountains or flat, Riccitello is purely in a team role this July, with his second Grand Tour in September in Spain offering a much more individual set of targets. He'll be returning to the Vuelta a España, where last year the 24-year-old won the best young rider classification and took fifth place overall.
"The Tour was always for Paul, to be there in the high mountains for Paul," he explains.
"So right now, it's full focus on the Tour, but the plan is to go to the Vuelta and ride for GC there. But yeah, let's get this out of the way first."
When Riccitello does come back to Spain, it'll be with over 12 months of breakthrough results in his palmarès. Last summer he won his first professional stage race in Europe, the Sibiu Tour, and then followed that up with his BYR jersey and Grand Tour top five in the Vuelta last September, a first overall win on the team's home soil in France at the Tour de la Provence this February and then a debut one-day victory in the Tour du Jura in April.
Crowning all of that, of course, is taking part in the Tour de France, where he says the atmosphere is very special, particularly racing for a homegrown star like Seixas.
"It's lived up to the hype. I mean, everyone before the race talked about how big it is compared to other races and it's lived up to that, but it's been a super cool experience," he says, of a race where he is making his debut along Seixas and others in the squad.
"It's the first Tour for Olav and for Daan [Hoole], too, so it's something new for all of us, we're all kind of going through the same experience together. It's super special, something to try to enjoy as much as we can."
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