Giulio Pellizzari

Pellizzari comes from San Severino Marche and rode as an amateur for UC Foligno, taking fourth in the junior road race at the 2021 Italian championships. He turned professional with Bardiani at eighteen. In 2023 he won the Giro del Medio Brenta, finished second overall at the Carpathian Couriers Race with the mountains and young rider jerseys, and took sixth overall at the Tour of Turkey.

He won stage eight of the 2023 Tour de l'Avenir and finished second overall behind Isaac del Toro. The following year he was third overall at the Tour of Slovenia, where he won the young rider classification, and eighth at the Tour of the Alps.

His first Grand Tour was the 2024 Giro d'Italia, ridden on a wildcard invitation. He had considered pulling out with illness in the second week, then finished second to Tadej Pogačar on the shortened stage 16 to Santa Cristina Valgardena, sixteen seconds down at the age of twenty. He wore the blue mountains jersey on stages 18, 19 and 21 while Pogačar was in pink, and took the combativity award on stage 20.

He is tall for a climber and races in short accelerations rather than long turns of tempo. Both the ride at Santa Cristina and the win that followed a year later came in the closing kilometres of a summit finish, once the steepest gradients had passed.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe signed him for 2025 and went to the Giro with Primož Roglič, who abandoned on stage 16. Pellizzari finished sixth overall and rode the closing stages in the white jersey, standing in for Isaac del Toro, who was leading the race.

At the Vuelta a España he rode in support of Jai Hindley and held white from stage six. On the Alto de El Morredero he came back to Hindley's attack, attacked twice himself where the double-digit gradients ended, and stayed clear to take his first Grand Tour stage win. He lost close to three minutes on the Bola del Mundo on the penultimate day, giving up the white jersey to Matthew Riccitello and finishing sixth overall.