He will have one of the best seasons of his career, although his performances are embarrassing in the beginning. Diego Ulissi is not shining in the spring of 2016, struggling in the rehearsals for the Italian Giro. But then he excels under the Apennines. He dominates two stages of the battle for the pink jersey, adds a partial triumph in the Tour of Slovenia and tops off the season with an overall triumph in the Czech Tour. For the first time, he will show his stunning strength beyond the borders of his homeland...
His birthplace is Cecina, where Paolo Bettini was born fifteen years earlier. A fighter who has won the World Championships twice, the monuments Lutych-Bastogne-Lutych and Around Lombardy, the Olympic Games in Athens, the Primavera Milano-San Remo and stages in every Grand Tour. When Diego Ulissi won two consecutive World Junior Championships in the 2006 and 2007 seasons, he was hailed as the new Bettini of Italian cycling.
"When someone says that two junior titles have affected my career negatively, it's not true. Every victory is great for a cyclist. I had one problematic season in the U23 category when I got mononucleosis, but I proved that Lampre didn't get it wrong by allowing me to enter the pro world," Diego Ulissi recalls of the early days of his career.
He has made no secret of the fact that he is a big fan of Juventus football club. However, he was originally named after a former legend of the club where Pavel Nedved also shone. "I was going to be named Michel, like Platini, but my mother didn't agree. So I'm Diego. After Maradona," laughs the 35-year-old Italian cyclist in a nod to the football legend who infatuated more than just Naples in the 1980s and led them to the Italian title twice.
He is the second cyclist in history among juniors to defend a world title, the first to do so being Giuseppe Palumbo. Compared to his compatriot thirteen years his senior, Diego Ulissi has become a great summit finisher. Especially in the intermediate stages he shone. "I worked on improving my endurance and my climbing skills. I'm competitive and I want to be the best in every race," says Diego Ulissi.
He was able to win a stage on his Grand Tour debut, which he secured at the 2011 Italian Giro. In the seventeenth act from the town of Feltre to Tirano, after 158 kilometres and 3,852 vertical metres, he beat compatriot Visconti, Spaniard Lastras and Belgian Bakelants in a spurt. Ulissi's teammate Michele Scarponi was the owner of the maglia rosa in 2011, when Roman Kreuziger took fifth place in the final accounting.
He also took partial triumphs during the battles under the Apennines in the inaugural Grand Tour in 2014, when he won two stages. First the fifth, which was the opening undulating climb after four spurters, and then the eighth, the first mountain climb with the finish in Montecopiolo. He also celebrated once during the 2015 Giro.
He had triumphs at Coppi e Bartalli, the Giro dell'Emilia or the Milan-Turin one-off, the Marco Pantani Memorial or the GP Camaiore. He has never celebrated a triumph outside his native country. It wasn't until the 2016 season that everything changed. First, he confirmed that the Giro suited him, and as soon as the peloton set off after three flat stages on undulating terrain, he celebrated victory. He then added another on stage 11. During the summer, he dominated the time trial at the Tour of Slovenia stage race, took the win in Spain at the Richard Otxo Memorial, and then was in office at the Czech Tour.
His team did well in the opening team time trial, in which the Lampre-Merdia formation lost only fifteen seconds. Ulissi's teammate Sacha Modolo dominated the second stage in Unicovo. The third stage from Mohelnice to Šternberk was exactly to the taste of the current UAE Emirates rider. The climb to Bratrušov, Ramzovské sedlo, Karlova Studánka, Dolní Moravice, and then the circuits in Šternberk with a triple climb to Ecce Homo. Diego Ulissi attacked with twelve kilometres to go. And he crossed the line with a lead of twenty-nine seconds over Karel Hnik. He moved up fifteen positions to take the race lead from Cannondale-Drapac's Sebastian Langeveld of the Netherlands. In the final 157km stage from Olomouc to Dolan, he was in the main group and was able to celebrate his first overall victory in a stage race outside Italy.
"It is almost impossible in the current concept of cycling to maintain a great form from the beginning of the season to the very end. It's all about the right motivation, mental set-up and confidence in your own abilities," reflects Diego Ulissi, who returns to the Czech Tour after eight years. In the meantime, he has added more stage wins from the Italian Giro, the single stage in Montreal, overall stage wins at the Tour of Turkey, the Tour of Luxembourg, the Tour of Slovenia for the second time in his career and the Tour of Austria this July.
Foto: Jan Brychta
