In the Italian celebration where the victory went to Christian Scaroni of Astana ahead of his teammate Lorenzo Fortunato, Giulio Pellizzari, in third place, was the least happy with yesterday's result, because his intention was to win the San Valentino stage on the day his captain, Primoz Roglic, was forced to withdraw.

As soon as he was free from the team, Pellizzari set off, but his determination was not enough to secure the victory. "Unfortunately for Roglic, it wasn't the right day, he tried but was forced to stop," Pellizzari said after the finish line. "I had been waiting for this moment for quite some time and yesterday I let out all the anger I had accumulated in recent days."

The guy from San Severino Marche had been riding close to Roglic, with whom he had developed a good relationship. "I'm happy with what I did, but I'm truly sorry that Primoz had to stop. Now we continue the Giro, changing our approach with the entire team and we'll see what happens in the coming days."

Today there will be the stage with the Mortirolo, with a lot of road to cover before reaching the finish. This could be a stage suitable for breakaways and therefore for a rider like Giulio Pellizzari. "Yes, I think this stage is quite suitable for breakaways, but breaking away from the start would serve no purpose, so let's see what happens during the race. We also need to see what happens among the big names, then we'll look at the last two stages, which I really like."

In yesterday's stage, the 21-year-old from Red Bull - Bora Hansgrohe showed that he could be a protagonist in major stage races in the future, capable of fighting not only for stage wins but also for the general classification. "Of course, one day I would like to win the Giro d'Italia, you never know what might happen and that's perhaps the beauty of it. I will continue to believe and hope that one day I'll be there fighting for the pink jersey."