You remember Giulio Pellizzari. That young Italian kid seemingly in every break during the last week of the Giro d’Italia. The one who almost won on Monte Pana only to be devastatingly but predictably overtaken by Tadej Pogačar with 1,200m of road remaining. “I thought, ‘What a jerk!” Pellizzari laughs. “But I quickly got over it.” He did. Within minutes he was caught on TV asking Pogačar for his pink sunglasses, only for his fanboying to be rewarded instead with the coveted glasses and a maglia rosa. Instant viral content and millions of views: tick. Now you definitely know who we’re talking about.
“The whole sunglasses thing with Pogačar made me even more famous than if I had actually won the stage,” the 20-year-old tells Rouleur. “The day before my brother, Gabriele, had told me he’d love to have Pogačar’s pink sunglasses. I didn’t know how to get them for him – I even checked the Scicon website but they weren’t for sale. Then I came second behind Tadej and I just wanted to shake his hand since he’s my idol. But when I saw him I suddenly remembered the sunglasses my brother had asked for. Without thinking twice I asked him if he’d give them to me and he also gave me his pink jersey! Amazing!”
Pellizzari is more than just a Pogačar superfan inside the peloton, he’s also regarded as the future of Italian cycling and was the subject of a bidding war between most WorldTour teams for his signature. In the end, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe won, snapping him up for the following three years. The Pogačar story doesn’t end with the sunglasses and the jersey though: the duo share the same agent, Alex Carera, a mark of how prodigious his talent is; Pellizzari’s frequent laughs, and his enthusiasm and joy when he talks about cycling has shades of the Slovenian superstar; and, yes, just like a true fan, Pellizzari does have photos of him and the three-tour Tour de France winner at home. “I started following him when he won the Tour de l’Avenir [in 2018] and the next year, his first season as a pro, I went to Strade Bianche with a friend and asked him for a photo,” Pellizzari recalls. “I told my friend to take a picture with him as well because I knew he was going to be a star very soon but my friend said, ‘Come on, who’s this Slovenian guy?’ Now he regrets not taking that picture.”
Now, it’s people taking photos with Pellizzari. He dabbled in football and water polo as a kid, but his…