It has been much anticipated, and when it did come it did so with the panache you'd expect from a young Italian star in the making. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) sprinted to victory at the end of a mountainous stage two of the Tour of the Alps. It was his first win of the year, leaving the likes of Thymen Arensman and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) in his wake.
It was also only the second win of his professional career, following last year's triumph on stage 17 of the Vuelta a España.
Afterwards, Pellizzari made a heartfelt dedication to the late father of his pro cyclist girlfriend Andrea Casagranda, who passed away in October.
"I'm dedicating this victory to a person who is unfortunately no longer here with us," he said. "Stefano Casagranda, the late father of my girlfriend, who clinched one of his first victories here in 1998."
He added: "I wasn't even born yet, but I've thought about this over the past month, and I really wanted to dedicate a victory to him, to thank him for being the father of this wonderful girl with whom I'm living my best love story with."
Pellizzari now leads the GC by four seconds from Arensman. Despite his win he insisted he was not feeling on top form, but that the team would continue to keep pushing.
"It can always be better," he said. "Today I was pretty tired from the start, I don't have, I think, my best legs. But after the job the team did all day and all the last month at Teide at altitude, I had to finish in my best possible way. And yeah, I think we finished good, and now we have to keep progressing because it's not over."
'Teide' is of course Mount Teide in Tenerife where, Pellizzari said, he spent a lot of time training with team-mate and former Giro d'Italia winner Jai Hindley.
"We had a lot of fun at every town," he said. "We went for a rough sprint and at times I could even beat him – I think it really boosted my skills."
Pellizzari's win was built on a series of accelerations in the final three kilometres. Pursued relentlessly by Arensman and Bernal, the trio joined up for the final kilometre, along with Pellizzari's team-mate Lorenzo Finn and Mattia Gaffuri (Picnic PostNL). The quintet sprinted it out over a downhill-then-uphill final 500m, with Pellizzari the clear victor.
On a tough day out from Telfs in Austria to Martell, across the border in Italy, the peloton tackled an early cat-one climb, a big cat-three mid-stage and then a steep 5km climb to the finish. It was here that the race was won and lost – numerous riders who had been in the frame for GC contention lost time and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) finished nearly seven minutes down – his recent post-crash break in training clearly taking its toll.
The Tour of the Alps continues tomorrow with a 174.5km mid-mountains stage from Latsch to Arco in northern Italy.
