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Andrea Piccolo is a big name

Well, he finished 10th in his first ever WT race and 11th in his first ever monument at 21. Was EF's 6th best scoring rider in 2022 despite only signing a contract with them in August. Maybe not a big name, yet, but I certainly expect him to be one in the future.
Let's see how he does in 2023 and my expectations are high.

 
A flute?

I'm afraid the t and k buttons are unforgiveably far from each other.

Did you seriously miss the obvious, pun? Well, one of them!

Piccolo-Profile-Pic-415x415.png
 
Certainly not a flute, nor a fluke. One of the more talented riders of his generation, that just happened to be dominated by ET.
Yeah, but he was also a first year junior rider when Remco destroyed everyone and everything (still finished 3rd in the WC ITT). The guy got lost in the shuffle with all the internal problems at Astana and had some health related problems before joining Gazprom, and we know what happened then.
With EF having a good TT set-up and his background I can see him doing well in shorter stage races with an ITT already this year.
That said, back in the day I actually saw Tiberi as the young Italian with more gc potential than him, but he hasn't progressed that much since joining Trek. Maybe that's just Trek, because he already had a coach from the national team in the junior ranks to develop him long term (like they do with the Italian track guys), so I doubt that he's one of those guys who was already a full blown pro in the junior ranks and has little room left to improve.
 
A couple weeks ago he was at the Squalo TV with other Italian youngsters (Bagioli, Battistella, Covi, Tiberi, etc).
He stands out because he's clearly the most ambitious of the lot. He's convinced he will fight for GTs sooner or later.
He also looks like someone who's prepared to make big sacrifices (gained no weight since the season ended and his training rides were renowned even when he was without a team a few months ago).

Don't know whether he can fulfill his potential but if he does it'll be a blessing for Italian cycling.
 
A couple weeks ago he was at the Squalo TV with other Italian youngsters (Bagioli, Battistella, Covi, Tiberi, etc).
He stands out because he's clearly the most ambitious of the lot. He's convinced he will fight for GTs sooner or later.
He also looks like someone who's prepared to make big sacrifices (gained no weight since the season ended and his training rides were renowned even when he was without a team a few months ago).

Don't know whether he can fulfill his potential but if he does it'll be a blessing for Italian cycling.
I don't want to speculate too much, but I just hope is health problems at Astana weren't weight related...

The interesting thing is that all the other youngsters are still insisting that Covi is rather lazy.
 
  • Wow
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