GIRO EXCLUSIVE - Podium and top10 for Astana

Last year Paolo Tiralongo won a mountain stage
in Giro d'Italia and now he hopes to do it again.

After crashing out two years ago, Paolo Tiralongo took a beautiful stage win in the Giro d’Italia last year and now the Italian veteran hopes to do it again. In my own predictions for the overall classification I have Roman Kreuziger to win this Giro but according to Tiralongo it’s the podium that’s the primary target for Astana.

“First of all we are focusing on the podium with Roman. He may have the condition to win overall but I think it’s more realistic to say podium. For me I hope to take another stage win and then hopefully end in the top10 as well. First of all I will have to help Roman though. I will be the last man for him in the mountains and I hope to stay by his side all the time”.

With a lot of strong riders the mountains, Paolo Tiralongo doesn’t hide that Astana aims for more than ‘just’ two riders in the top10.

“Last year we did very well in the team classification [won by 10 minutes to Movistar] and this year we aim to win it again. But it’s not our first goal here. First of all we look at the overall classification and a stage win”.