Italian cycling sensation Damiano Cunego signalled his ambitions by winning the seventh stage of the Giro D'Italia today to steal the leader's jersey from his Saeco team leader Gilberto Simoni.
Cunego, the winner of stage two last week, is being hailed by many in Italy as the perfect replacement for the recently deceased Marco Pantani and showed that he certainly has the legs to follow in Pantani's footsteps.
On the first serious climbing test of the three-week race, the 22-year-old from Verona held off Australian Brad McGee and Italian duo Franco Pellizotti and Giuliano Figueras on the 17-kilometre climb to the summit finish of the Montevergine sanctuary.
He now has a 10 seconds lead over reigning Giro champion Simoni, who had started the day with a 13 seconds lead over his younger team-mate but finished this stage in sixth just behind another former winner, Stefano Garzelli. In third place in the overall standings is Franco Pellizotti, who is 28 seconds behind Cunego.
The 214km stage from Frosinone to Montevergine started off badly for some of the Italian tifosi (fans) as veteran sprinter and former world champion Mario Cipollini decided to call it a day, having crashed earlier in the race. However it took only an hour for the stage to liven up, with Italian Luca Mazzanti and Niki Aebersold of Switzerland, after a 191km breakaway together, being caught with 13 of the final climb's 17 kilometres to race.
Although Simoni, the reigning Giro champion, did his best to control some potentially damaging attacks on the climb, he could do little in the final stretch as Cunego's young legs pulled him clear to allow him to claim his seventh victory since April.
Whether Simoni allowed his younger team-mate a taste of the Giro limelight before deciding to really take over the race or not will be a hot topic up for debate in Italy.
However Cunego has already shown that he has the guts and ability to give Simoni, who is aiming for a third triumph in the Giro, a run for his money.
Filed by Mark O'Neill-Cummins
