Selfless Piganzoli worked tirelessly for Vingegaard on stage 9 and picked up a podium place along the way

In the shadow of Jonas Vingegaard, teammate Davide Piganzoli is quietly having an outstanding Giro d'Italia. The young Italian finished a fine third on stage nine's summit finish, half a minute behind his team leader.

It was Piganzoli's most impressive result to date — and it followed a series of exceptional performances in service of Vingegaard. He did strong work in the hilly finale of stage two, then made a magnificent impression on Blockhaus. Sunday took him one step further, and he even dragged a podium place out of it. He also moved up three places in the general classification and now sits thirteenth overall.

Vingegaard had already expressed his admiration in his flash interview. "He is super strong and I am super happy for him. He is a special one." Speaking to Eurosport, Piganzoli said he wasn't entirely surprised by his result. "The last few days I have already been feeling very good."

Piganzoli also confirmed Vingegaard's account of Visma | Lease a Bike's tactical thinking. "We were not going for the stage win — but we were in a good position in the finale because the gap to the break wasn't that large," he explained.

Visma | Lease a Bike therefore adjusted their tactics and rode hard on the final climb. One rider in particular made an impression, according to Piganzoli. "On the final climb we set the tempo. Sepp [Kuss] was fantastic for Jonas. Then Gall attacked and Jonas could follow."

At that point Piganzoli could have chosen to save his legs — but an unselfish instinct kept him going. "I wanted to stay close to Jonas in case he had a mechanical. There was no team car behind us," Piganzoli explained. And so he held on to finish third. "I am super happy about it!" he concluded with a broad smile.