A summit finish? Yes but of sorts as it’s only steep in the final three kilometres.

Non fermo fino a Fermo: a non-stop stage that looked the part from start to finish, all at 45km/h. After a flurry of attacks, Filippo Ganna and Alberto Bettiol got away together but they were too strong, it was impossible for others too bridge across and eventually the pair folded. More moves came and went until with 76km to go, on wet roads, UAE’s Mikkel Bjerg went clear and seconds later his team mate Jhonatan Narvaez went across to his colleague, and Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X just made it across.

The trio combined well, with a classic stand-off behind. Moves from the likes of Garofoli and Romo to get across were doomed as the lead three were too far clear. In sporting terms this sucked the suspense out of the day, it would have been exciting to see more riders joining them and the the script changing. But Bjerg was working hard to avoid just this.

It was hard to see how Leknessund could win from here, grind down the others? With 10km to go as they climbed to Capodarco Narvaez attacked and this shed Bjerg. Leknessund got back on terms, but only just and another move by Narvaez shook of the Leknessund. Narvaez was only a few metres ahead at times but measured in time on the 20% slopes he had a sufficient margin to keep the Norwegian champ away and take a second stage win.

The Route: 184km with 2,400m of vertical gain. It’s across the pianura bolognese, the flat home roads of the Bardiani team. The climb after 110km lifts the route over from one valley to the next but is on a regular road. Once back in the next valley it’s inland to Sila.

Out of Sila and the road starts climbing and into Gaggio Montano, home of several coffee machine factories including Gaggia and also another company founded by two men called Sergio and Arthur and they created SA and company or SAeCo, which later sponsored a cycling team, more of which below. It’s gentle for the most part on a wide road but with one steep ramp coming into the town. From there there’s 20km and the first 10km are gentle and with some descents.

The Finish: the 28km climb is really all about the final three kilometres and even these don’t have many surprises, the road drags up through woodland with a 10% slope to the line to make the final selection.

The Contenders: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) is the obvious pick, he can bid his time until the final 3km before using the 10% slope to jump away. But will his team ride lock down the race? Unlikely, so the breakaway has a good chance.

Picks for the breakaway are wide open because if this is a summit finish, a non-climber can still attack within 10km and use their power to take a gap which they can defend at the end. Not that 80kg riders like Max Walscheid, Jonas Rutsch or Tord Gudmestad stand a chase, but it’s open to plenty.

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) is suited to the stage and his team needs a result, he had pink but lost it for a day and if the team has pretensions to be among the best the need to score soon.

	Ciccone, Christen
	Vingegaard, Rubio, Van Eetvelt
	Vergalito, Sobrero, Pinarello, Poels, Rafferty, Lopez²

Weather: a mix of sunshine and clouds, 21°C during the stage but the more into the mountains the cloudier it gets, and a chilly 6°C at the finish.

TV: KM0 is at 12.50pm and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Tune in at 4.00pm for the final climb but don’t expect fireworks on this long, gradual climb.

Postcard from the Corno alle Scale
The Giro last finished here in 2004 and what an edition that was. This was the Giro post-Pantani after he’d died in February that year. Il Pirata remains a constant presence at the race, just yesterday one branch of his still existant fan club was at the stage finish.

The 2004 Giro became a duel between Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego, team mates at Saeco. Simoni was 32 years old and had won the Giro in 2001 and 2003 and was known for his straight talking. He would comment on rivals in a way that nobody does today and his quotes often formed headlines by themselves. Cunego was a second year pro with cherubic cheeks and tufts of blond hair. You can begin to spot opposing caricatures.

“Let’s not forget that I am the captain of Saeco” said Simoni on the eve of the Giro after Cunego won the Giro del Trentino (the Tour of the Alps today) ahead of him, and on Simoni’s home roads. Simoni was even talking about winning the Giro as a springpad to a Tour de France victory that year and had spent the winter taunting Lance Armstrong, trying to provoke the American to do the Giro as well. We don’t need too much hindsight to spot the hubris here.

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Cunego won Stage 2, taking a 40-rider sprint. The next day the race finished at the Corno alle Scale and Simoni won solo ahead of Cunego, with Simoni taking the race lead too. But come Stage 7 and Cunego won and with the time bonus took the maglia rosa. The two battled each other, sometimes via the pedals, sometimes via the press. Simoni would remark he could still win the Giro even if he did not attack Cunego, as his younger team mate would melt under pressure. But Cunego would finish the race with four stage wins and with two minutes on Serhiy Gonchar, with Simoni third by a few seconds.

These duels and beefs don’t exist in cycling any more. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard aren’t friends but neither gives quotes designed to wind up their rival. If you can find a verbal gap between Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari it might be over their preferred pasta shapes. The hypothesis here is that there are two reasons. First, newspapers no longer mediate these rivalries, instead social media does and for all the potential for online antagonism, riders follow each other and can message each other, rather than polemiche and spiced-up quotes pitched in opposition, which see one rider read a quote and then react but also if a rider did say something outrageous it became a headline, now it can be challenged and even demolished in minutes which tempers the riders. So now things can be smoothed over, or iced, almost in real time. Second, a lot of this smoothing is achieved by teams who go a long way to policing the communication of their athletes, they don’t want any negative output including criticism of rivals. What gets said inside the team bus is drilled into riders to stay there… unless it happens outside between Gianmarco Garofoli and Filippo Zana.

When Simoni won here at the Corno alle Scale he declared “Someday soon I’ll teach him [Cunego] all about how to win a grand tour“. It was a line that was more defensive rather than an invitation to share tips and lives on because of its sizzling invective. All eyes on Hindley and Pellizzari but the quotes won’t be so spicy.

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A fun stage awaits with a series of sharp climbs in the finish. This is what a Giro stage should look like, offering lively racing that is an expression of the land, scenery and architecture.

Stage 7 Review: the stage win for Jonas Vingegaard and in the predicted manner: attacking with 5km to go to shake everyone off his wheel, the difficulty of the slope heightened by a stiff wind that was at times making riders climb in echelon formation.

If it went to plan, the script still had some twists. The first surprise was Giulio Pellizzari who was able to match the Dane. Vingegaard was flustered, turning back several times to find the Italian still on his wheel. The second surprise was that Pellizzari cracked after a kilometre, perhaps no shock but he must have known he was in the red but persisted and went deep into a crimson moment and almost stalled on the slope, “I was wrong” he said at the finish. The third surprise was Felix Gall who darted past Pellizzari and finished second, at only 13 seconds behind Vingegaard when the Dane would have been expected to take more time.

Only ten riders were within two minutes of Vingegaard. Further down, Damiano Caruso and Egan Bernal lost almost three minutes, Jan Christen over four minutes and Enric Mas close to six minutes.

It leaves Vingegaard in the perfect place. Afonso Eulalio stays in pink with three minutes. We saw the Bahrain team work yesterday when they did not have to; this implies they will work more and this eases the load on Visma. Plus if Gall was surprisingly close, he’s a fragile rider at risk of trouble on descents, in crosswinds, and if he can ace these there’s the 40km time trial next week where he will certainly lose time. Even better for Vingegaard was not only did he crack Pellizzari, Jai Hindley sprinted away from his colleague in the finishing straight rather than tow him to the line. Everything is going to plan for Vingegaard.

The Route: a ride out of Chieti and then a spin up the coast to the intermediate sprint. After this the race heads into the hills.

• the Montefiore climb is 10km at 3.6% but the first half is full of 5-6% and there’s a small descent midway you don’t see on the profile
• Monterubbiano is 6km at 5.1% but with plenty of 6-8% ramps. Like many roads in the Marche region there’s little engineering, instead the road takes the contour of the terrain with more changes in pitch than a novice saxophone player
• the climb to Fermo is 3km at 5% with plenty of 8%
• the sharp, narrow ramp to the Red Bull point

• The climb back from the sea to Capodarco

The Finish: the profile above says plenty but this is a run past the city walls and then a ride into the old town complete with cobbles and flagstones in town. Having lamented the other day that too many Giro stages finish out of town and don’t show off the host towns today does it right.

The Contenders: a good day for the breakaway. Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) is out of the GC race and good on a course like this. Likewise Jan Christen (UAE) who can focus on stages now, with Jhonatan Narvaez and obvious pick too. Local rider Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal-Quickstep) is suited but a win would be a surprise.

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) might be the best suited to the course and the finish but he’s eighth overall, he won’t get much room to go in the breakaway with the likes of Netcompany-Ineos, Tudor and Jayco needing to contain him. Christian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) is 11th overall and has more room.

	–
	Narvaez, Christen, Scaroni
	Ciccone, Sheffield, Van Eetvelt

Weather: sunshine on the coast but rain coming in later with a top temperature of 18°C in the hills.

TV: KM0 is at 1.35pm and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Tune in 3.30pm for the start of the hills.

Postcard from Fermo
What have Jai Hindley, Filippo Zana and Einer Rubio got in common? They’re all riding the Giro today but if you want a hint: today they’ll return to Capodarco.

The answer is they’re all winners of the GP Capodarco, a one day Under-23 race held every August. The format is simple, a flat loop to the Lido di Fermo, the seaside, before switching to laps around the town of Capodarco including a climb that’s 3.5km long at 6%. On the final lap the race heads for the historic old town and finishes with a wall climb that’s got a long section at 18%. Throw 150 riders into this and the strongest emerge; it’s not the Tour de l’Avenir but is selective.

Much is made of Italy’s chronic lack of a World Tour team, and now the looming concern is the next level down is shrivelling too. We have Polti-Malta and Bardiani in the Giro but as things stand on the UCI rankings Bardiani aren’t going to be eligible for the Giro next year; although Solution Tech is. One in, one out? Yes but Bardiani have brought on young riders like Pellizzari and Pinarello while Solution Tech is more mercenary, hiring riders to score points and probably less sustainable.

Where Italian cycling still thrives is the Under-23 scene. The majority of U23 one-day international races are in Italy, plus two of the five stage races with the Giro Next Gen and the Giro della Valle d’Aosta as well. Italy has 13 Continental teams, second only to China.

It’s not all rosy but it is holding up. The Italian amateur scene has been so prolific that both the Australian and British cycling federations have created bases to offer their riders a program of racing that they can’t get domestically. One reason for the rise of Slovenian cycling has been the ease of crossing the border to race in Italy and find a calendar of events to suit. The most recent winner of the GP Capodarco? Slovenia’s Jakob Omrzel, now aged 20 and riding for Bahrain.

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The first summit finish awaits. As long as you are patient because today’s stage is a marathon by modern grand tour standards at 246km so it will take some time before the riders tackle the slopes of the Blockhaus.

Polemica napoletana: the Giro went to Naples for the fifth consecutive year with a flat finish by the sea. When the route was announced it was easy to assume the finish would be the same as usual. Only it wasn’t, and everyone who discovered this change – be it over winter, this spring or yesterday morning – could see the cobbled U-turn and thought: “that’s risky” and “it better not rain”.

It started to rain as the race approached, Italian TV commentators reported umbrellas going up at the finish while the peloton was 2.5km away. Going into by then infamous last corner Elmar Reinders fell first, his back wheel washing out and taking his sprinter Dylan Groenewegen with him – have the Rockets uploaded a video with screeching tire sound effects and a sad trombone? – prompting others to brake and more fell. Davide Ballerini and Jasper Stuyven took a tighter line and stayed upright and Ballerini was able to sprint for the win with Stuyven later complaining he couldn’t change gears. As the two got round it’s proof the bend was rideable, but equally the propensity for a crash was high. The good news is that nobody was badly injured.

Despite almost coming to a halt, Paul Magnier calmly clipped a foot back in and rampaged past the traffic to take third place. Perhaps he would have won? More certainly he took plenty of points and now has 134, more than double that of Jonathan Milan.

The Route: A long day at 246km – the longest grand tour stage since 2021 – so there’s plenty to tire the riders before they reach the final climb of the day with 4,600m of vertical gain, most of it before Roccamorice and the final climb. Part of the distance comes from doing a 50km loop at the start out of Formia.

The Finish: 18km at over 8% so comparable to Mont Ventoux in terms of stats; and anecdotally often windy too. The road goes on to over 2,000m to the Blockhaus peak proper but the finish today at 1,665m is plenty for the first week.

Blockhaus? the Giro calls it Blockhaus but locally all the signs say Block Haus. Either way as Guillaume Martin said, “you think to yourself it’s on the Austrian border, then I realised it’s in the south of Italy“. Only there is a piece of Austria here. A lot of Italian military officers trained with the Austro-Hungarian empire and imported various techniques, including fortifications such as a Blockhaus, German for a log cabin and a garrison built to control the mountain and keep an eye on smugglers. If you want more on what it’s like to ride up, see the Roads to Ride post.

The Contenders: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) is the obvious pick, today serves as confirmation for his status as the runaway pick and we’ll know plenty this evening.

If Giulio Pellizarri (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) can out-climb him then we’ve got a race on.

Others? Yes, from the breakaway because if a solid group can go clear then have a chance of being able to stay away but this will require no GC contenders or outsiders, and then then take molto minutes during the stage so that they start the last climb with a cushion of at least five minutes. A stage winner last year Chris Harper (Pinarello-Q36.5) fits the bill, as does another winner in Einer Rubio (Movistar). Darren Rafferty (EF) and Alessandro Pinarello (NSN) could be worth watching.

	Vingegaard
	–
	Pellizzari, Harper, Rubio, Pinarello

Weather: a cold day in the Apennines, weak sunshine and often cloud, 12°C and some rain showers too.

TV: KM0 is at 10.55 and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Castel di Sangro is where the climb to Roccaraso begins around 2.20pm and the final climb of the Blockhaus starts around 4.30pm.

Postcard from Formia
Today’s postcard comes from the start town. Many riders might want to linger around town, if only to grab more for breakfast. The stage is 246km and could be the longest race of the year. It’s certainly the longest grand tour stage since the 2021 Tour de France did 248km from Vierzon to Le Creusot.

The Monuments are regularly normally longer when it comes to distance – Lombardia can be under 250km – but they’re one day races of course. Today could be the longest day of racing when measured by time. The start is at 10.55 and the finish is due for 17.15 which is six hours and twenty minutes, this year’s Milan-Sanremo was done in 6:35. If today takes less time, it’ll be only just. With the cold and rain, plus teams unlikely to take the fight to Visma it could be longer.

It’s a challenge for riders. Everyone in the peloton is used to high calorie consumption, often the talk is of 120 grams of carbs per hour, a round number which varies from rider to rider and different terrain and phases of the race. Being able to fuel more means being able to ride harder for longer. But how much to take on today? Just as the race can finish ahead of schedule or behind it, riders may need a wide variety of calories today depending on how hard the racing is. Better to just eat more in case? Sure but do this a few times and a rider can put on a kilo before race reaches the Alps; or their intestinal system struggles to cope with the load well before.

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It’s a lot of broadcast hours. What do the commentators talk about? The hardest job is probably the moto camera crew. Holding a camera is hard work on foot, now try it on a motorbike which is moving. The worst role is Moto 2. If Moto 1 goes to cover the breakaway, Moto 2 is often filming in front of the peloton. This is done backwards, the motorbike is riding forwards but the camera has to be turned the other way. Camera operators have different techniques, some want to sit facing forward on the bike while rotating as much as they can to see what is happening behind, others find it easier to turn while standing. Remember all this the next time you’re on the sofa for six hours with snacks close to hand.

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A sprint finish today. Hopefully it stays dry as the finish has some tight turns and polished pavé.

Diluvio e Eulalio: it poured, rain was running down the roads in rivulets and in some places a torrent. The early breakaway took a while to form with the Visma-LAB team trying hard to filter the moves, including Victor Campenaerts going the move that did stick. Was he there to police things, to disrupt them or just see who was there under all the rain jackets? Because Alfondo Eulalio was there, the Bahrain rider started the day just over a minute down on GC. Lidl-Trek seemed to miss this or gambled others would chase but they didn’t.

Igor Arrieta attacked the 13 rider breakaway first with 52km to go and got a gap of 30 seconds when Eulalio rode across on the main climb of the day. The pair had every reason to co-operate, the “stage for you, jersey for me” scenario.

Once in the streets of Potenza the race took on a Wacky Races feel where the damp roads had their say. First Arrieta went sliding out on bend, then Eulalio moments later. This allowed Arrieta to get back so the pair could dispute the finish. Only for Arrieta to lock up on another corner and go off course. Eulalio now had a gap but his legs were tetanised by the cold. Arrieta began to close in and in a slow motion sprint came around for the win with Eulalio taking the maglia rosa as more than a consolation. All this on a day when earlier Mathys Rondel had smashed into the back window of a UAE team car and a moto in the race fell and took out several riders too.

Arrieta and Eulalio have been names to watch for the future, Eulalio a “neo-pro to watch” last year. Now we’ll use the present tense. Arrieta can feature for more stage wins. It’ll be interesting to see how long Eulalio spends in the lead, he’s got over six minutes on Jonas Vingegaard and company and is a good climber.

The stage was a flop for Lidl-Trek to lose the jersey so quickly. Visma-LAB were notably absent from the chase too. Now Vingegaard won’t lose much sleep about dropping Eulalio, and keeping the Portuguese rider in pink can even save Visma some work but still, six minutes is generous.

The Route: just 141km and a spin along the coast on big roads before the easy ascension through Cava de Tirreni. Today’s route sticks to the flattest roads possible rather taking any coastal cliff roads or tackling the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.

The Finish: if the Giro returns to Napoli and finishes by the sea, this is in a different place with a new route. It’s big streets through the city and then runs alongside the docks with 4km to go.

In the final kilometre there’s a tight left turn onto cobbles and the road begins to climb to a 180° corner (or two right-hand corners as there’s a small space in between) and then 400m of finishing straight to the line, all still climbing on cobbles. These are urban pavé but old, the kind where passing traffic noisily slaps the stones and they can be very tricky in the wet. Right at the finish the cobbles switch to large flagstones.

The Contenders: three sprinters lead the picks. Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) comes first because he’s won twice already and is agile for this uphill finish and the cobbles but with some risks too, he’s not the most delicate of bike handlers and besides two wins already is plenty.

Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) has been close and today is a good chance. The uphill finish is within his range but we’ll see if the leadout changes, perhaps using big Max Walscheid up before little Simone Consonni takes over on the climb?

Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) is the third pick. Out of the picture in Sofia he had punctured on the run into town and lost energy in the late chase.

Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet Rose Rockets) gets a mention too, the slow turn and the uphill run to the line suits him less, but the penalty is moderate rather than severe.

It’s hard to get beyond these four. Others can win but all their chances seem reduced. Madhis Mihkels (EF) for example has done well but can he get ahead of the big names cited already in a straight sprint? Likewise for all but Ethan Vernon (NSN) is good at seated sprints and this could pay on the cobbled road.

	Magnier, Milan, Lund
	Groenewegen
	Vernon

Weather: up to 21°C and sunshine but some heavy clouds rolling over the race at times which can unleash brief downpours.

TV: KM0 is at 2.05pm the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Tune in for the sprint finish.

Postcard from Napoli
Carmine Castellano died in March at the age of 89 in his home town of Sorrento, a spin down the coast from Napoli. He was the Giro’s race director from 1993 to 2003.

There’s a blog post to do on race organising being a thankless task. If you do a great job and everything goes without a hitch, everyone congratulates the winner. If there’s one problem with the route, even a stray dog, then the organiser must be to blame. Nevertheless Castellano gave up being a lawyer working in the courts of Naples to run bike races.

After starting local races he was on the organising committee for the Giro stage from Potenza to Sorrento in 1974. The race had a central command in Milan and delegated on-the-ground organisation to local committees for each stage; the Tour de Romandie does this today. Castellano became the Giro’s man in the south. In the mid-80’s he moved to Milan to take on more work and by 1989 he ran the whole Giro, notionally alongside Vincenzo Torriani but as de facto organiser.

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In 1993 Castellano took over formally as the race director. He was a pioneer in the literal sense, opening up new routes for the Giro. The Mortirolo and Zoncolan were both Castellano innovations, he was modest enough to attribute their discovery to locals but visionary to include them. The choice suited the race as they offered spectacle and notoriety without high altitude and so less risky for a visit in May. One high peak the Giro did visit to was the Colle delle Finestre in 2005, the first visit of a grand tour to a gravel road for a long time.

If the Giro had a golden age with Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, it enjoyed a boom under Castellano thanks to Marco Pantani and the flourishing Italian cycling scene. In 1997 the Giro resembled the Italian stage race championships with 131 Italians out of 180 starters. Only the bubble burst and Pantani’s ejection from the 1999 Giro after failing a blood test played a large part in this. Ejecting Pantani from the race must have been Castellano’s most difficult moment but he said “respect for the rules comes before everything else”. He was a lawyer after all.

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A good day for the breakaway with a hard stage and some cold weather returning to the Giro.

¡Gracias Movistar!: the early breakaway was swept up on the main climb thanks to the fast pace set by Movistar. The Spanish team quickly cracked several sprinters, first was Arnaud De Lie who soon abandoned. This was the predicted elimination tactic at work, ejecting all the sprinters while allowing their fast rider Orluis Aular to hold on. The first surprise came with Thomas Silva being dropped early, and then more as Egan Bernal was dropped and Gee-West too but apparently the Canadian punctured.

Bernal and Gee would get back on the descent with help from team mates sent back to fetch them, Gee-West still sore from injuries but Bernal a surprise. Visma-LAB could have joined Movistar to ensure the pair lost time, but left the Spanish team to work alone.

Jan Christen took the intermediate time bonus and then made a late attack in the streets of Cosenza but was ridden down. In the finishing straight Orluis Aular tried to complete Movistar’s work but ended up on the too early and could not sustain his sprint. So in the end UAE won, this time with Jhonatan Narvaez. And thanks to time bonuses from the intermediate and the finish Giulio Ciccone is the new maglia rosa with four seconds on Christen.

Kudos to Movistar for trying, sometimes infamous for incomprehensible tactics, this was their rational path to victory and they were only a few metres short. Their loss was our benefit with a lively stage.

It’s also a relief result for Lidl-Trek as they haven’t won a race since Tirreno-Adriatico and while they’ve been close with Jonathan Milan this week, they’ve also been hit with more bad luck because of Gee-West’s crash on Saturday and the big budget team needs days like this.

The Route: 203km and what’s Italian for déjà vu? The last 70km from Viggiano are almost identical. to Stage 7 from 2022. The difference is today is not as hilly as last time, but there are still 3,700m of vertical gain.

It’s uphill from the start including the Valico di Prestieri, a proper mountain pass that should help the breakaway form even if it is not categorised.

The Montagna Grande di Viggiano is the hardest climb of the day, 6km at 9% towards a small ski station. There’s still a long way to go so it’s not quite a launchpad for the stage win but a chance for the climbers to make life hard for the others.

Last time La Sellata, was a proper climb again but this time the approach is across a plateau and so flatter. Altogether it’s a hard stage with a lot of vertical gain but nothing fierce so it makes it accessible to many.

The Finish: a run around the streets of Potenza. It has some of the same roads as 2022 but last time the finish went up a steep ramp to the line, this is on a wider, gentler slope.

The Contenders: with about 125 riders over four minutes down of which almost a hundred have lost ten minutes or more there’s plenty of space to go in the breakaway.

The archetypal winner today is among these riders, does not have any big GC duties today, can cope with the Viggiano climb and quick enough to win the sprint up the false flat. Meet… Michael Valgren (EF) as he fits the bill for a stage like this although he might prefer to go solo than sprint against others. Other suggestions include Magnus Sheffield (Netcompany-Ineos) as a raw talent and attaque de Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ), he was very active in the Vuelta last year and suited today. But plenty more riders get a chance.

Both Javier Romo (Movistar) and Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X) seem really suited but they’re only three minutes down so will have less room.

If the breakaway can’t form or stick then for the finish we’ll see if Jan Christen (UAE) can play it cool, and UAE have a good reason to chase today because he can win the stage then he stands to gain the maglia rosa, as even if tied on time he’s placed better than Ciccone on countback. So Lidl-Trek have a good reason to let the break go and chase later. Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) is good for the finish and Orluis Aular (Movistar) can try again too.

Koen Bouwman (Jayco) won here in 2022 but a repeat would be a surprise, team mate Alan Hatherly

	–
	Valgren, Christen, Van Eetvelt
	Aular, Sheffield, Ciccone, Leknessund

Weather: yesterday’s hot weather had plenty of riders sweating but today it’ll be much cooler, 14°C in land and some rain showers.

TV: KM0 is at 12.25 and it could be worth watching the fight for the breakaway. The finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Otherwise tune in at 3.40 for for Viggiano and the start of the climb.

Postcard from Potenza
Today’s stage finishes in Potenza and shares many of the same roads as the Giro’s finish here in 2022. It’s the 15th arrival of the Giro in Potenza but only third time this century so it’s hardly a place to be tired of, whether you’re on the race or the sofa.

Grand tours offer a blend of discovery and familiarity and there’s a skill to getting the blend right. New places can intrigue, especially if there’s visual charm. In recent years Alberobello with its trulli stone houses or Matera with its sassi, inhabited stone caves are memorable.

These can delight the race but also offer tourist appeal, important for Italy grappling with “overtourism”, the phenomenon of places being overwhelmed by inbound tourists to the point where locals feel excluded, something that is acute in Rome and Venice, and crucially in certain parts of these cities to the point where a part of town, or even one coffee shop becomes a destination because of algorithmic herding.

The Giro alone can’t divert tourists away from Rome-World or Venice-Park but it can play a role in suggesting there is more to see. Only it struggles to lean into the aesthetics and charms of Italy. Potenza today is not in the top-10 jewels of Italy to put it gently but still has plenty to delight with its squares, cathedrals, theatres and arched gateways. Italy is not short of these.

But the Giro is. Today’s finish is on a bland four lane highway (pictured). Often the stages finishes on the edge of town because it’s easier logistically, or the authorities don’t want to close down the town and upset shopkeepers.

In some ways this makes the Giro a real tour of Italy, a passive celebration of the roundabouts and bypasses used daily by millions rather than tourist traps. But the race could combine the visual with the sporting. The finish of Stage 8 is Fermo will do just this but it feels like the exception on the course.

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The Giro resumes in Italy with short stage with a big climb.

Magnier-fico: if you could replay a summit finish over and over with the riders who arrive at the foot of the a mountain often the result would be the same. In a sprint it’s very different. With Stage 3 take the riders who were together with 3km to go on the road into Sofia and replay it and the outcome could vary. But the sense is that Paul Magnier would win a lot and Jonathan Milan would too. The problem for Dylan Groenewegen is that he could too only future stages now get harder for him until the Milan criterium on Stage 15.

The Route: 144km and an early unmarked climb after the start but it’s a five minute effort and was tackled a decade ago when the Giro also rolled out of Catenzaro. Then it’s along the coast.

Today is all about the climb midway. The race manual says it’s “easy” and 17km at 5% sounds steady but zoom in because there’s 14km at 6% and the first 8km are close to 7% which is Alpine enough to drop plenty, all on a twisting side road too.

Once past the mountains banner there’s a false flat to the real pass and then a long descent and 40km to the finish with the final 20km on the flat.

The Finish: ah, Cosenza! Its cathedral perched on the hill, the charming cobbled streets, even labelled the Athens of Italy [record scratch sound].

A run past the railway yards, a set of roundabouts where a wrong turn leads to a McDonalds Drive and then a few zigzags in town. It’ll pay to have a good lead out through the streets but they’re wide and the final 450m rise at 3%.

The Contenders: Maglia rosa Thomas Silva (XDS-Astana) is now a name to contend with, he’s got a good finish and every reason to sprint for the win today with team mates Scaroni and Ulissi on hand to help. He’s shown he can win from a group when others have been dropped on a climb. Florian Stork (Tudor) was close on Saturday and could be too and his team will work twice as hard to set him up.

Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) is the default pick today. Not that he is a certain pick, it’s more that in a range of outcomes he might be one who ends up winning.

The Passo Crocetta ought to be used by teams with a fast finisher as an elimination race, they can set a pace to distance bulky sprinters. So Soudal-Quickstep can ride fast enough to leave Dylan Groenewegen floundering, then Movistar can set a pace too fast for Paul Magnier to the advantage of Orluis Aular and so on. Easier said than done as they have to be left behind early and then the teams that achieve this have to be able to sustain it on the 20km to the finish to keep any chasers away. So in reality Magnier might be dropped but he could come back; or maybe teams don’t like this tactic and Magnier hangs on. Again he’s far from a certain pick, but quick and more agile so he might be able to go for the win when Milan and Gronewegen have been dropped. Kaden Groves (Alpecin-PremierTech) has won this way before but he’s uncertain with injuries on Stage 2. Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) can do well but we’ll see with the climbing.

Francesco Busatto (Alpcein-PremierTech) is another rider who is quick for a stage like today from a small group. Orluis Aular (Movistar) and Corbin Strong (NSN) are fast too, we saw NSN working for Strong on Stage 2

With plenty of riders having lost time already the early breakaway also has a good chance, more than we might have imagined pre-Bulgaria. It’ll have to work hard to build a lead before the climb, this might require sending two riders per team with one to pull and the other to win the stage. António Morgado (UAE) could give his team something to cheer but pick from plenty who face a stage that is neither sprint nor summit finish.

	–
	Magnier, Silva
	Stork, Bussato, Aular, Strong, Lund, Turner, Morgado

Weather: sunny, 25°C and an onshore breeze for the passage along the coast. Forecasts say up to 20km/h so not enough to split the peloton normally but teams can try.

TV: the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Tune in from 3.40pm for the Passo Crocetta.

Postcard from Cosenza
Today’s stage is 100% in Calabria and the finish is in Cosenza, the region’s fifth biggest city. It’s the sort of place that should host the Giro regularly but hasn’t finished here since 1989. Swiss rider Rolf Järmann went solo near the finish to win the stage. Järmann would go on to win a Tour stage and the Amstel Gold race twice in the 1990s.

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As he told Blick magazine his career overlapped with the EPO doping era. Pressured by his team – Ariostea – to take EPO, he bought it to appease management but threw it away as he hoped to prove he could win without, only for the team doctor to angrily spot his blood values had not changed.

In time he’d use EPO to win. After the Festina affair he decided to stop, only to find when he was planned to attack on a short climb near the finish of a stage of the Tour de Suisse in 1999, just the kind of move that suited him, 60 riders came past him uphill. He had changed ways but the peloton had not.

Järmann had a hobby outside of cycling: computing. It’s a claim that’s difficult to verify but he may have been the first professional athlete to start a blog. He would post brief diary entries and remarks. One day he estimated how much spaghetti he ate in a year, and calculated that laid lengthwise it would cover 5km. That sort of thing.

The hobby became business as he went into internet hosting and web design. During this time he also got into campervans and the two interests combined into a blog about van life which occupies him now, it’s called womoblog, as in Wohnmobil or camping car in German. Maybe he’ll be beside the road somewhere this month?

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A sprint stage to the capital to conclude the Giro’s Balkan start.

Stage 2 review: Polti-Malta riders Mirco Maestri and Diego Pablo Sevilla went clear with Sevilla out for more mountains points. He’s on 24 points now (and there are 18 available for the second category climb today, presumably his finish line). Several sprinters were dropped on the mid-stage mountain pass with Arnaud De Lie suffering the most but he was able to get back to the convoy and then to the bunch.

With 23km to go a UAE rider towards the front of the bunch seemed to grab the brakes and lock up his front wheel, sliding out and taking many down with him. The bend was lined by a crash barrier and riders slammed into this at speed. Marc Soler, Jay Vine, Adne Holter and Santiago Buitrago left the race, plenty more were left with abrasions and musculoskeletal trauma.

The race was was briefly neutralised to take stock and see if there was medical cover left. Things  resumed within a few kilometres.

On the Lyaskovets climb Davide Piganzoli set the pace with his captain Jonas Vingegaard in second wheel. It looked prudent, to keep the Dane out of trouble but once Piganzoli could pull no more and the group had been reduced to less than 50 riders Vingegaard accelerated. Prudence? Was it to keep out of trouble ahead of descent? No, this time he stamped on the pedals in a real attack and only Giuilo Pellizzari and Lennart Van Eetvelt could follow.

Van Eetvelt was after the stage win without an interest in gaining time but it showed too much and this slowed the trio. Jan Christen floated across but this just sabotaged the group further and they were swept up by the group in the final kilometre. In the sprint Thomas Silva had the timing and speed to take a surprise win for XDS-Astana with Christian Scaroni being the more obvious contender. Silva has been a punchy rider who seemed to specialise in Asian races when at Caja Rural, and now at Astana after winning the Tour of Hainan last month. Now he has his first World Tour win and the maglia rosa for today and probably beyond.

We got a glimpse at the GC race with Pellizzari able to follow Vingegaard. Plus the hypothesis of Vingegaard being out to take advantage of every opportunity is bolstered but with one example, we’ll look out for more.

Derek Gee-West was part of the big crash and would lose a minute, a setback. Adam Yates finished over 13 minutes down. Santiago Buitrago didn’t finish the stage. Andrea Vendrame won’t start today.

Overall for all the novelty and surprise of Silva’s win, the day had a sour note for the crash and the damage it caused.

The Route: 175km and with a second category climb offering 18 points for the first rider over, a finish line of sorts for the competition leader Diego Pablo Sevilla with 24 points already.

The Finish: an 8km long finishing straight.

The Contenders: a sprint finish and we’ll see if Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) can get this. He looked underpowered in the opening stage but this could just have been the crashing and chaos around him but it’s a concern. Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) could be more reliable today. Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) has the speed, power and lead-out to make him a factor too.

Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet Rose Rockets) gets a finish to suit as if there are other flat stages, ones like Napoli are full of corners and even some climbing.

	Lund, Milan
	Magnier
	Groenewegen, Vernon, Van Uden

Weather: sunshine and clouds, 23°C.

TV: KM0 is at 13.05 and the finish is forecast for 4.15pm CEST.

Postcard from Sofia
The race goes to the capital city today and it’ll be interesting to see the turnout in the city. The government has changed this weekend so there are bigger stories. It has not been easy to find local press coverage about the Giro, there was a piece explaining the history of the race with references to Fausto Coppi and similar but often articles have been along the lines of “the following roads will be closed, expect delays” or “the Giro is a big bicycle race, the national authorities are using it to promote tourism”, the tone was of inconvenience and something being done rather than an invitation to a party. But all this was viewed from afar via an internet connection, clearly a lot more happened on the ground as the crowds have impressed so far, people have come out to see.

The Giro will make its way to Italy now. Each team gets up to 20 seats on five charter flights for riders and team staff which will be chased by three cargo planes. There’s also a ferry from Greece to Italy to take team vehicles, that involves a 600km drive away from Sofia. All the logistics mean the race pauses on Monday, but the “rest day” is a euphemism for “travel day”.

Not everyone is making the journey. Some teams sent staff for the Bulgarian start who go home this evening, with a separate crew waiting to start work on work in Italy. Host broadcaster RAI has kept staff including several of its presenters in Italy where they’ve been broadcasting their post-stage “Processo” show from Consenza too.

This year’s Giro is 24 days long. The UCI rules (2.6.007) say a grand tour should be up to 23 days but allow for an extra day once every four years “to organise the start in a non-adjacent territory to the country of the event and/or requiring a long transfer” only Bulgaria comes a year after Albania so this rule is flexible.

It opens the door to further travels. This time last year Abu Dhabi was being talked of as a possibility for 2027. It’s hot and not just the 40°C temperatures likely in early May but the geo-political situation too. Maybe there’s a greater need to appear open for business than ever and the Gulf state will pay even more of a premium than it pays for the organisation of the UAE Tour? It could fork out for the biggest hosting fee in pro cycling. Just don’t expect the same crowds.

The post Giro d’Italia Stage 3 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The best of the Bulgaria stages for action awaits with a difficult climb with 10km to go.

La vie en rose: the surprise were the crowds, plenty of people came out to see the race go by. The shock was the crash in the final with 600m to go, it felled so many riders the road was temporarily blocked. Riders can recon the finish, bloggers can scour maps, but organisers can place barriers where they want and the crash happened in a narrow point on a normally wide boulevard.

In the chaos this left ten riders clear to contest the sprint with Lidl’s Max Walscheid surging clear rather than leading out Jonathan Milan. Tobias Lund had a better lead-out but Paul Magnier even better one and the Frenchman was able to power past for the win and the maglia rosa.

Milan looked underpowered in the sprint, legs spinning in high cadence. Moments later he looked distraught when interviewed by Italian TV for losing out on the maglia rosa but he can try again tomorrow and came through unscathed. There were no immediate injuries in the crash but others will be sore today and into tomorrow. Kaden Groves seemed to come off the worst but the plan is to start today. Update: Matteo Moschetti won’t start today out of concussion precaution.

French cycling’s future is called Paul and not just Seixas. Magnier is from the Alps near Grenoble but he was born in Texas and lived there just long enough to start singing nursery rhymes in English. His father was a good amateur racer and Paul started out in mountain biking. Crossing to the road he saw himself as a climber, even when he turned pro with Quick Step for 2024 where he wanted to go back to the U23 Giro and race for GC but soon found out from his team mates at Calpe that he wasn’t going to be the new Mikel Landa. Instead he out-sprinted Tim Merlier and this and more gave him team leadership for his first ever pro race in Majorca… which he won. He had 19 wins last year and if they were in smaller races he was 21 with a lot to learn on the road. Now he’s leading his team at the Giro and wearing pink.

The Route: 221km, the second longest of the race and 2,700m of climbing. The middle part crosses the Balkan mountains with some 7-8% slopes in places.

With 14km to go the climb of out Lyaskovets stings. It’s 2.5km at 9.5% and has long parts of 12% and even an 18% moment on the way up thanks to some tight hairpins. It’s all on a small road in woodland so moving up is costly or probably impossible making this a crunch point for stage contenders and GC riders alike. The descent is more regular.

The Finish: charming streets to saunter past the churches and fortresses… if you’re strolling about on foot but these are narrow roads for a bike race with a pinchpoint before 2km to go, although the previous climb should have thinned out the field. It’s uphill at 5-6% between 2km and 1km to go with some cobbles too before flattening out for the finish.

The Contenders: a tricky climb to thin the field and reward attackers but it’s only one climb, this isn’t Liège or the Amstel. Seven minutes and basta.

There are a several names to contend with but none of them is a prolific winner. Among the attackers on the climb Christian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) has had a slower start to the season this year but his team can afford to aim for more quality than hustling for UCI points. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) packs a good sprint for a finish like this but like more hills in the finish to make it more selective. UAE have options, Jhonatan Narváez is suited but form unknown after crashing out of the Tour Down Under, can António Morgado make it over the climb with the best If not then Jan Christen probably can. Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain) is a fit for today with colleague Edoardo Zambanini still after a first pro win so today is asking a lot.

Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) is suited to the finish but is he in form? His team mates Simone Gualdi and Lorenzo Rota have a chance here too and all three did not ride the Famenne Ardenne race that has made half the team sick.

More Italian picks include Filippo Zana (Soudal-Quickstep) and Andrea Vendrame (Jayco) with the later having to hold on for the climb and get back for the finish.

Some sprinters have a chance. Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) among them as he’s part of a new generation of sprinters with big aerobic capacities too but his problem here is he can’t control the speed of the others in the finish, he can only react and follow and hope there’s hesitation up ahead. Orluis Aular (Movistar) is another fast finisher, Corbin Strong (NSN) too.

	–
	Scaroni, Ciccone, Buitrago
	Morgado, Aular, Magnier, Strong, Turner

Weather: cool and cloudy, 18°C with the chance of some rain and damp roads in places.

TV: KM0 is at 11.05 and the finish is forecast for 4.15pm CEST.

Postcard from Veliko Tarnovo
Today’s finish town has hosted the Tour of Bulgaria plenty of times, although yesterday’s city of Burgas has enjoyed more visits. The stage race dates back to 1924 although it’s had its interruptions. Today is a fixture on the calendar and 2.2-rated by the UCI.

Last year Byron Munton was 7th overall, he’s been impressive with the Modern Adventure team this season, having rode with the Epronex-Hungary Cycling Team last year. Others in the top-10 overall over the years include Paul Double and Georg Steinhauser but the race is not big on revealing talent. This is not down to the event itself, more that the Continental / 2.2 stage race scene is structurally this way with few riders on this circuit moving up the pro ranks. Why could fill a whole blog post but riders are often picked up earlier by pro teams and put into development paths.

In 2021 Lukáš Kubiš finished sixth overall and came back in 2023 to finish one place higher. Now a stalwart of the Unibet-Rose Rockets team he is back on Bulgarian roads to ride the Giro.

The post Giro d’Italia Stage 2 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The Giro starts in Bulgaria with a seaside stage for the sprinters.

The Route: 147km and a sprint finish. After a ride along the coast, there are two laps of a 22km circuit including the intermediate sprints, one with the 6-4-2-s time bonus plus a climb to help award the mountains jersey, then it’s back on the same road they took out to reach the finish in Burgas.

The Finish: big roads around town and a gentle last bend onto the finishing straight. It does slope up to the line but gently.

The Contenders: Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) is the towering pick. He’s among the best sprinters in the world and the others in this bracket are not at the Giro. Yet he and his train have been error prone, so as good as he is there’s a risk of derailment.

Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet-Rose Rockets) finds a stage to suit, this Giro has sprint stages with climbs along the way so he’ll want to score today because others will be out of reach. Ditto his replacement at Jayco in Pascal Ackermann once a Giro points winner but today an infrequent winner.

Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) has been revelation this season since winning in Australia but can he keep it up? He’s proved quicker than the best at times, beating Milan and Philipsen this season and his leadout train is solid, originally built for other new recruit Olav Kooij but he’s made up for the Dutchman’s illness.

French cycling has more than one Paul as a prospect for a near future and Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) will be a three-chainring pick for hillier days but he’s got a lot of speed for flat finishes, he can just have a real advantage on hillier days. Similarly Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) also craves a Giro stage to get his season back on track but he’s been ill.

Casper van Uden (Picnic-PostNL-Raisin) won a Giro sprint stage last year but has only one other win since.

Kaden Groves (Alpecin-PremierTech) has won two Giro stages before but he’s not a regular winner and he’s been out for a while with knee injuries so a harder pick today.

	Milan
	Lund, Groenewegen, Magnier
	Vernon, Van Uden

Weather: often sunny, 19°C and a light sea breeze but 10km/h, no crosswinds to shred the peloton. Instead the risk of rain showers which could make for slippery roads.

TV: KM0 is at 2.00 and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST.

If you’re in Bulgaria it’s on БНТ 3 for the opening three days.

Otherwise host broadcaster RAI offers the richest coverage with experienced commentators as well as two roving reporters on motorbikes to add extra info.

If you want English coverage, there’s Max/Eurosport/TNT, in the US it’s on HBO Max, Flobikes for Canada, in Australia it’s free on SBS which is handy for VPN users; for Japanese coverage see J-Sports.

Postcard from Burgas
Why Bulgaria? The country is a willing payer although the politicians who championed the grande partenza have departed. Prime Minister Rosen Željazkov heralded the grande partenza announcement last December only he was swept from office two weeks later.

Italy and Bulgaria have ties, Italy is the third largest source of foreign direct investment in the country after Austria and Greece; on a smaller scale Eurostat estimates around 50-60,000 Bulgarians living in Italy for work.

Like Albania a year ago, Bulgaria is keen to appeal to Italian tourists in search of budget summer holidays; Burgas today offers sun, sea and now Euros as the national currency, plus there’s a direct Ryanair flight from Rome too. The capital city of Sofia is the main mover behind the Giro’s visit and the tourism budget is funding it.

Just as the Albanian start last year had political blessing, this year’s start has also been personally approved by Italy’s foreign minister and joint Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani. You won’t notice it today or tomorrow at the race as it’s not easy to spot on Eurosport but the Giro is increasingly becoming a political vehicle and a platform for politicians in Italy of the governing coalition. As cyclingnews.com‘s Stephan Farrand puts it “RCS Sport has cuddled up to the right-wing politicians currently in power in Italy to secure funding and sponsorship from state-owned agencies”.

This has obvious advantages with patronage required to open up roads and pay for hosting fees and more. The new maglia rosa sponsor is a tier of regional government run by the far-right. But there are risks if this further exploited for party political reasons and the Giro becomes divisive rather than unifying.

The post Giro d’Italia Stage 1 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Jonas Vingegaard is the leading pick and today it feels like misfortune may be a greater threat to his chances of winning overall than any rival rider.

Plenty can come unstuck in the next three weeks and if it’s easy to imagine the winner, it’s harder to cite the names alongside him on podium in Rome so here’s a look at Vingegaard’s mission and the other contenders.

Only Tadej Pogačar, team mates and misfortune have stopped Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) winning stage races in recent years. In the Slovenian’s absence he should be clear of the field and he’s been lucky before starting the race as João Almeida who pushed him close at the Vuelta last year, and Richard Carapaz who can gamble with attacks while other defend, have opted not to race.

As we saw in Paris-Nice his style is not to snipe time bonuses but to attack mid-climb and open up a gap so he can turn a handful of opportunities into minutes of advantage. Technically solid for positioning and descending, he comes with a strong team in service undistracted by sprint stages. He’s planning to ride the Tour de France too so will he try to win with economy to be fresher for July? Only his team still don’t have a title sponsor for next year and needs to be seen to win big to entice any sponsors so one hypothesis is they’ll aim for every opportunity that Vingegaard or Sep Kuss can conclude; even lending out the maglia rosa mid-race could be a concession and if this idea stands they could steamroller the breakaways on mountain days.

The Giro is a must-win, he’s here to avoid basing his season around a confrontation with Pogačar and anything less than the maglia rosa in Rome could be awkward for him and the sponsor quest. He hasn’t raced since mid-March so it’s a big assumption is he’s ready to go, but he won the Vuelta last year well short of his best.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe bring previous winner Jai Hindley as co-leader and he’ll soon be back to the Blockhaus where he built his victory in 2022. His win is fascinating today because to ponder “how did that happen?” is to open the door to tantalising surprises for 2026 too, not just for Hindley but for a host of rival contenders who we struggle to see winning today but in three week’s time it might all be perfectly obvious.

Giulio Pellizzari was sixth last year and is fast-improving and blooming into an all-round GC rider who can hold his own in time trials when a year ago he was losing time. He’d love to win but can equally ignore the Dane to settle for second place as this would be a huge result and would delight Italian audiences both for the result and the hope it invites, La Gazzetta dello Sport already brands him la nostra grande speraza, “our great hope”. They also have a Aleksandr Vlasov as a third prong, he’s struggled with injuries last year but this season he looks ready to bounce back. This gives them options but it’ll be hard to isolate Vingegaard.

With João Almeida out of form, UAE bring Adam Yates as their leader when he’s normally been a support rider, a role he excels in. He’s just won the Gran Camiño race but the hard part is to see him getting ahead of Vingegaard. The team come with options in Jay Vine and Jan Christen but can these two sustain GC challenges? Vine is saying no to this already but he can match the best climbers and and rival the best time triallists too, but his best result in a grand tour is 30th overall, in part because he’s taken on support roles but it’s not a stretch to imagine him going up the road on a mountain stage and being hard to pull back while Yates sits tight. Aged 21, Christen rides his first grand tour and is a lively prospect with a reputation as a man in a hurry; he’s been injured this spring but has been posting some impressive rides to Strava of late.

Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) is big talent with some of the best lab numbers going but his challenge is exploiting this out on the road and not losing out because of mistakes with positioning or descending. Fifth in the 2025 Tour de France showed us what he can do but there’s a fragile aspect for a grand tour challenge, plus he’ll dread the 40km time trial stage.

Ben O’Connor was fourth here in 2024 and like old team mate Gall a brittle rider but also searching to recover the form of his last year at Decathlon-Ag2r. One of his strengths is stamina and endurance, he’s thrived on marathon stages and long climbs but this is a Giro with short stages but if things turn cold and wet he can thrive when others shiver. He’ll still cope and he can often beat expectations for time trials too.

Ineos bring past winner Egan Bernal but post-accident still on a long path back to victory, even his Vuelta stage win last year was when the finish was changed mid-stage because of protest, not his fault but he’s not beating the best yet, still he’s looking better, the challenge is to convert this into a podium finish or a stage win along the way. Thymen Arensman has twice been sixth overall in the Giro but a third time would be a disappointment unless he can take a stage or two along the way, he’ll appreciate the long time trial and the relatively softer third week.

Bahrain bring veteran Damiano Caruso for a valedictory Giro, a resilient rider who seems to hide in plain sight until the third week when he’s suddenly a GC contender but aged 38 he’s slower and more a road captain for Santiago Buitrago who is aiming for a top-5. Afonso Eulalio is a promising climber to watch too.

Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) was fourth last year when La Gazzetta Dello Sport was branding him il sottomarino, “the submarine”, as he was hard to spot but always among the fleet of contenders. This year he’s been harder to spot among the results in recent weeks but he’ll like the long time trial. Giulio Ciccone (pictured) has given up on going for the overall as when he tried he’s never cracked the top-10 overall, but what if this just eases the pressure and he ends up well-placed? He could also go for the mountains competition as he packs a good sprint on climbs.

Enric Mas (Movistar) starts his 15th grand tour but first Giro. He’s often seemed to use the Tour as prep for the Vuelta so feels like an unknown quantity for May, a blank canvas. Is he better in the second grand tour or is that home advantage? Will he like this Giro’s Vuelta-like short distances route? Probably yes to this question and he’s backed by a solid team including Javier Romo.

Tudor tandem Michael Storer and Mathys Rondel are interesting for their different styles. Storer seems temperamental and volatile for form because at his best he can push Vingegaard in the mountains but twice tenth in the Giro shows delivering across three weeks is hard, while Rondel starts his first grand tour and is a shy rider trying to find his way.

Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) seems to have lost his way of late. Said to be on the market, the Giro is a good shop window for his talents but if he can be back at his best he’s a punchy rider more likely to thrill for stage wins than ride to a steady top-10.

Finally a mention for Alessandro Pinarello (NSN) who was Pellizzari’s colleague at Bardiani and improving too, he’s in form and in a field of just 41 Italian starters – the lowest ever – another one for the tifosi to cheer.

	Vingegaard
	–
	–
	Pellizzari, Yates, Gee-West, Arensman
	Bernal, Christen

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