Tuesday’s Giro dell’Appennino was a minor occasion on the June racing calendar, a 1.1-ranked race stretching 199km from Novi Ligure to Genoa on Italy’s Ligurian coast. A handful of WorldTour groups mingled amongst Italian ProTeams and a slew of Continental groups, together with eight home-based squads.
With no worldwide tv protection and none of biking’s star names on the startlist, it is comprehensible if the 86th version of the race handed followers by. Nevertheless, the 2025 Giro dell’Appennino hosted a historic win as Diego Ulissi soloed house.
The XDS-Astana rider scored a invaluable 120 factors for his Kazakhstani group of their battle towards WorldTour relegation. Nevertheless, Ulissi’s achievement on the day has put his identify within the report books, with the win persevering with a streak of victories that now dates again 16 years.
Ulissi has now received a race in each season since he turned skilled with Lampre-Farnese Vini again in 2010, his streak holding robust whilst a nine-month ban for the bronchial asthma drug salbutamol dominated him out for parts of the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
His first win got here in September 2010 on the GP Industria e Commercio di Prato, and his streak has included 14 at WorldTour degree, together with eight levels of the Giro d’Italia and the 2017 GP de Montréal.
Ulissi, who again in Could wore the maglia rosa on the Giro d’Italia for the primary time in his profession, now holds the longest year-on-year win streak within the present peloton, with Norwegian veteran Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) having received for the fifteenth 12 months in a row on the Vuelta a Andalucía again in February.
French sprinter Arnaud Démare (Arkéa-B&B Accommodations) is on a 13-year streak, although the 33-year-old nonetheless wants a win this 12 months to increase that to 14 years.
Traditionally, Ulissi has now moved one 12 months away from Francesco Moser, who held a 15-year streak from 1973 to 1987. He is equal with Sean Kelly (1977-1992), Erik Zabel (1993-2008), and Tom Boonen (2002-2017), and lies one 12 months in need of three extra riders – Rik Van Looy, Jacques Anquetil (each 1953-1969), and Mario Cipollini (1989-2005).
Different riders who accomplished notable streaks in current historical past embrace Elia Viviani and Annemiek van Vleuten (each 2010-2023) on 14 years, and Peter Sagan (2010-2022) and Mark Cavendish (2006-2018), who received races for 13 years in a row.
Ulissi is at the moment within the first 12 months of a two-year deal at XDS-Astana following a transfer from UAE Crew Emirates over the winter, which means he’ll have the 2026 season to try to equal Van Looy, Anquetil, and Cipollini.
His newest victory, 9 seconds forward of Ukrainian racer Andrii Ponomar as Astana teammate Simone Velasco took third, noticed him go solo 50km from the end, passing the break whereas cresting the penultimate climb of the race, earlier than driving alone for over 30km to the end.
“We had a reasonably younger group in the present day, with guys from XDS-Astana Devo Crew, a few of them had simply come again from the Giro Subsequent Gen,” Ulissi stated after the end. “Everybody did an excellent job, and we managed the early breakaway.
“Then, on the toughest climb, with round 50km to the end, I attacked. It was fairly powerful with the headwind, however I managed to achieve some benefit and take this win. Up subsequent, we now have the Italian Nationwide Championships, and I feel we now have a robust group there, so we are going to attempt to give it a correct battle.”
