First or second in every Grand Tour that he has started since 2020, it’s not hard to see why Jonas Vingegaard lines up at the 109th edition of the Giro d’Italia as the overwhelming favourite.
Compared to the other team leaders and riders who have overall ambitions, he climbs better than all of them, his time trial performance is strongest outside of the dedicated specialists and finally, his level of concentration and race craft is second to none. Racing incidents aside, the surprise won’t be if he wins, it’ll be by how much and how many days he spends in the maglia rosa as race leader.
It sounds simple enough, but three-week races always have a surprise or two – though it’ll have to be a monumental one to upset the expectations that Jonas Vingegaard has on his shoulders right now.
The real interest in this Giro is what happens behind Vingegaard once he puts himself on top of the GC standings, because each of the contenders come with baggage of some sort that has or will compromise their ambitions.
Giulio Pellizzari, Egan Bernal and Adam Yates appear to be the clearest choices who will be involved in the contest for the remaining podium positions given current form, however each rider has different issues to deal with.
Pellizzari is the rising star of Italian stage racing and is carrying the home nation’s hopes and therefore, of these three, will be under the most scrutiny. He has been climbing brilliantly which is a major plus given the number of mountain top finishes but his time trial is a weakness. Not that I expect it to be disastrous, but it will add to the pressure he will face, with one long time trial on the cards on stage 10.
Egan Bernal is finally coming back to being competitive at the top level. On the plus side…
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