Jonas Vingegaard\u2019s bid to complete a rare Grand Tour grand slam by winning the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia begins in Bulgaria on Friday when the double Tour de France winner makes his debut in the Italian race.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard, the winner of the 2022 and 2023 Tours de France, has been eclipsed by the achievements of Tadej Pogacar \u2013 winner this season of nine races in 11 days of racing \u2013 but is the outstanding favourite for victory in Rome on 31 May.<\/p>\n
That is largely because Pogacar is absent. In fact, the Dane will be competing in something of a void, as the world\u2019s best riders skip the Giro to prioritise on the all-consuming Tour de France.<\/p>\n
Success in his first Giro will make Vingegaard the eighth rider in history to win all three Grand Tours, but the absence of Pogacar, both from last year\u2019s Vuelta field and this spring\u2019s Giro peloton, is likely to overshadow the achievement.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard will race against a field lacking not only the seemingly unstoppable Slovenian, but also Remco Evenepoel, the double Olympic champion, and the prodigious French teenager Paul Seixas, who has announced that his priority will be starting his first Tour de France in July<\/a>, in which he will be the youngest debutant in 89 years.<\/p>\n Jonas Vingegaard celebrates after winning stage two of the 2025 Vuelta. Photograph: Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Other notable absentees from the Giro include Tom Pidcock, third to Vingegaard in the 2025 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, fast-developing German rider Florian Lipowitz, a podium finisher last July in Paris and Pogacar\u2019s teammate Isaac del Toro.<\/p>\n For Vingegaard, once seen as Pogacar\u2019s closest rival, the Giro is also a chance to reassert himself. At 29, he is now in danger of being usurped by Seixas, a rider 10 years younger who has already shown himself capable of following the Slovenian\u2019s vicious accelerations.<\/p>\n But there are signs that the Dane, derailed by a life-threatening crash in 2024<\/a>, is back to his best. After winning the troubled 2025 Vuelta<\/a>, which was disrupted by serial pro-Palestine protests<\/a>, he won France\u2019s second-biggest stage race, Paris-Nice<\/a>, and also the Volta a Catalunya<\/a>, this spring.<\/p>\n Given the list of absentees from the Giro\u2019s start list, Vingegaard\u2019s Visma Lease-a-Bike team might ask if not now, then when, but making any assumptions of the Giro underestimates the capricious nature and volatility of a race renowned for freak accidents and extreme weather.<\/p>\n This is the first Giro Grande Partenza to take place in Bulgaria, and the 15th foreign start in 109 editions of the corsa rosa, but the grand plan has been blighted by political unrest in the host nation and disputes over travelling costs with the leading teams.<\/p>\n After three days of racing in Bulgaria, the convoy will head to the foot of Italy and then turn north, through Calabria and Campania, before the first major mountain finish at Blockhaus, on stage seven.<\/p>\n The 2026 Giro takes in almost 49,000 metres of climbing and five summit finishes, which, given Vingegaard\u2019s capabilities, looks ideally suited to his hopes of success. There is one individual time trial, midway through the race, but it is flat and, despite being more than 40km long, should not trouble him.<\/p>\n If the Dane will be relying on his recent good form, Grand Tour experience and climbing skills, then Jim Ratcliffe\u2019s recently rebooted Ineos team, which has relinquished sole naming rights to the Danish tech experts Netcompany in return for a \u20ac20m (\u00a317.2m) a year boost, will be hoping to exploit AI in their pursuit of a first Grand Tour win since 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jonas Vingegaard takes a selfie with fans in Burgas, Bulgaria. Photograph: Gian Mattia D\u2019Alberto\/AP<\/p>\n For the new-look Netcompany Ineos, the Giro offers an opportunity to test two recent innovations \u2013 the integration of AI into their racing strategy and Geraint Thomas\u2019s appointment as director of racing<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Thomas, speaking at the Netcompany Ineos launch last week, believes there\u2019s more to racing than software. \u201cI think there\u2019s still a need for the art,\u201d he said. \u201cGetting that clarity on all the data and stuff is one thing, but bike racing isn\u2019t just about numbers. It\u2019s about how you ride, the craft, and consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n Wealthier than they were a month ago, the Welshman and his team are also now in a position to pursue Seixas, who, while only a teenager, has become the most coveted talent in the sport.<\/p>\n While the speculation over Seixas\u2019s future continues, Netcompany Ineos will rely on the consistency of Egan Bernal, winner of the 2021 Giro and also the Tour de France, at just 22, in 2019<\/a>. Like Vingegaard, the Colombian\u2019s best career results came before a high-speed crash<\/a> that left him in intensive care.<\/p>\n Bernal has not finished on the podium of a Grand Tour since making his comeback, and while he is a dependable performer in the high mountains, he is unlikely to challenge for the maglia rosa. This year\u2019s Giro is Vingegaard\u2019s race to lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonas Vingegaard\u2019s bid to complete a rare Grand Tour grand slam by winning the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia begins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-655932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}