Giro d'Italia: Garofoli battles with two broken ribs and aims for mountain stages

It can only be a good balance that of Gianmarco Garofoli after ten days of competition at Tour of Italy. Despite two broken ribs, a 'gift' from the fall in the Naples stage, the sixth, on Thursday, and three punctures, on Sunday, in the dirt section. Which however did not take away his grit and desire to fight. Take yesterday. In the time trial from Lucca to Pisa he finished 20th, ahead of important names. The day after the fall, Friday, he was in the breakaway for almost the entire day (in the third stage, in Valona, ​​he had instead taken 11th place). From Castel di Sangro to Tagliacozzo the boy from Soudal Quick Step, born in 2002, was in the breakaway for a good part of the stage, caught only at -5 together with three other brave riders. And also in the stage with the arrival in the Marche on Saturday in Castelraimondo Garofoli hoped to be a protagonist. "I tried, but after the stage on Friday my legs were not 100% - he explained in recent days to Rai microphones -. It went well anyway, I'm happy for Ulissi who wore the pink jersey, but the Giro has just begun, it's only the first week, there are still stages to come". Even if in the first week there was no shortage of fears (with the disastrous fall of captain Landa) and emotions. "The real Giro started when we arrived in Italy. As a team in Albania we started off on the wrong foot by losing our captain. The loss of Mikel (Landa, ed.) was a big loss. We had to reinvent ourselves, new opportunities were created. I can say that this first part of the Giro went quite well on a personal level. I will try to take advantage of the opportunity to have more space by trying to win some stages. Day by day we will evaluate how to move, we will try to do our best. I will try again in the mountain stages".

Maybe starting from today's stage where the climb is not lacking from Viareggio to Castelnovo Ne' Monti. In short, Garofoli seems to be on the right path after the myocarditis of 2022 that kept him away from the bike for 7 long months. "I risked not even racing on the bike anymore, but luckily everything was resolved". Then this year the change of team, from Astana to Soudal Quick-Step. "I needed a change of scenery after the misfortunes of the past few years. I have found a new life and a team that believes in my abilities. I am happy and it seems that everything is falling into place to return to winning ways". The young rider from Fidenza will certainly want to be a protagonist again, as he did on Friday "where I went very strong, but unfortunately I was unable to achieve any results".