When the Giro d’Italia gets underway this Friday, it’s going to simultaneously have one big GC favourite, whose race it is to lose, but also a real air of unpredictability and openness. Somehow, both of those things can be true at once.
The big favourite is, of course, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike). But after him, the list of top contenders becomes a bit more shaky. With no João Almeida, no Richard Carapaz, no Simon Yates, no Isaac del Toro, there’s not a group of five or 10 riders who are guaranteed to be in the overall battle on every mountain.
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The other element that feeds into this Giro’s unpredictability is simply that the Giro is always unpredictable. Just last year, we watched Del Toro – ostensibly a domestique for 2025’s ‘big favourite’ Juan Ayuso – wear pink for two weeks and very, very nearly win the whole thing.
Now, there’s no gravel stage for Vingegaard to crash on, à la Ayuso last year, and you might say that he feels as safe a bet to take home pink in Rome as Tadej Pogačar was two years ago. And maybe he will; that wouldn’t be a surprise, but we also can’t be surprised if the roads of Italy throw some curveballs into the mix.
Where could surprises come?
The first danger zone for the GC favourites – and therefore fertile ground for opportunists – will likely be the start in Bulgaria. On unfamiliar roads and cities, unknown terrain and with rain possible, the already high-tension of a Grande Partenza will be ramped up this weekend, and there’s a possibility for chaos.
Of course, a few seconds lost or gained in the first days is not often race-defining, but a Grand Tour can be a death by a thousand cuts, so what happens here will matter. And if someone unexpected gets off on the right foot, or a favourite gets off on the wrong one, the effects could be felt all race long.
The obvious place for…
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