Gianni Moscon has said that he wants `to win and shut everybody up` when he returns to competition following his five-week suspension for hitting out at Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro) on stage 15 of this year´s Tour de France. In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, on the day his ban ends, the Team Sky rider again denied punching Gesbert despite the existence of television footage demonstrating that he had turned and raised his arm towards the French rider. The Italian also claimed that he had once been punched during a race by Stefan Küng (BMC Racing) and he said that he initially felt as though he had been `sacrificed` by Team Sky in the immediate aftermath of his expulsion from the Tour. Moscon is scheduled to return to competition at the Coppa Agostoni and Coppa Bernocchi at the weekend as he prepares for the World Championships in Innsbruck. Italian national coach Davide Cassani is keen to give him a place in the eight-rider team despite his time away from racing.ADVERTISEMENT `I´m not thinking about it anymore. I don´t care, not even about what they say,` Moscon told La Gazzetta. `They´ve kept throwing shit at me, but in my head, I´ve gone back to the way I was as an amateur. When there was a hill, I´d attack and go away alone. I´ve gone back to thinking like that, in a positive way.` Moscon´s short professional career has been littered with distasteful episodes. He racially abused Kévin Reza on the 2017 Tour de Romandie, and though Team Sky allowed him to complete the race, he was later side-lined for six weeks. He was disqualified from the 2017 World Championships road race in Bergen when a video emerged of him taking a tow from the Italian team car after he was caught up in a crash on the penultimate lap. Last October, Moscon was accused of deliberately causing Sebastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ) to crash during the Tre Valli Varesine, but the UCI disciplinary committee dropped the case in June, citing the absence of video footage. Reichenb ...
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