Unibet Rose Rockets’ 2026 Grand Tour hopes on hold as RCS Sport delay naming Giro d’Italia wildcard teams

The Unibet Rose Rockets team have been invited to Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo but will have to wait a little longer to find out if they will ride the Giro d’Italia and so any Grand Tour in 2026.

Italian organisers RCS Sport have revealed the wildcard invitations for their March races, but held off revealing the final wild cards for the Giro d’Italia as they consider their options and perhaps negotiate with teams.

RCS Sport confirmed on Tuesday that all 18 WorldTour teams will race Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo. Tudor Pro Cycling, Pinarello-Q36.5 and Cofidis qualified for automatic wildcard places after finishing as the top three highest-ranked ProTeams in 2025, but Cofidis will not ride Strade Bianche or Tirreno-Adriatico.

RCS Sport awarded Strade Bianche wildcard places to Italian teams Bardiani CSF 7 Saber, Polti VisitMalta and Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali, new Hungarian-registered but Italian-based ProTeam MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort, and Unibet Rose Rockets.

Bardiani, Polti, Solution Tech and Caja Rural were invited to Tirreno-Adriatico, while Bardiani, Polti, Unibet and Novo Nordisk were invited to Milan-San Remo.

The 2026 Giro d’Italia starts on May 8 in Nessebar, Bulgaria and finishes on May 31 in Rome. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek), Richard Carapaz (EF-EducationFirst), and Ben O’Connor (Jayco-AlUla) are all expected to fight for the maglia rosa.

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Cofidis have already confirmed they will not ride the Giro and will instead focus on scoring UCI ranking points in other races, despite securing an automatic wild card invitation to the Corsa Rosa. That could help Unibet Rose Rockets secure a wildcard, but RCS Sport could decide to invite other ProTeams who finished in the top 30 of the 2025 UCI team rankings. RCS Sport and ASO pushed the UCI to allow an extra wildcard place in 2025, but RCS may decide to invite just 22 teams this year.

Last week, Tour de France organisers ASO surprisingly snubbed Unibet Rose Rockets, awarding the final wildcard places to TotalEnergies and Spanish team Caja Rural-Seguros RGA.

The Vuelta a España, which is also owned by ASO, quickly announced their wildcard teams, inviting Spanish teams Kern Pharma and Burgos Burpellet BH. Caja Rural missed out but were happy to be invited to the Tour de France that begins in Barcelona.

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Unibet finished 28th in the 2025 team rankings and signed 15 new riders, including Dylan Groenwegen, Wout Poels, Ireland’s Rory Townsend and Victor Lafay. They are widely admired for their innovative approach to the sport and use of video and social media to showcase their efforts.

However, that was not enough to convince Tour director Christian Prudhomme. RCS Sport are known for pushing the wildcard candidates to guarantee their strongest possible rider roster for the Italian races and even to seek race sponsorship deals as part of a wider agreement.

Unibet quit the Italian online gambling and gaming market in November 2025, when new licences were confirmed, passing their clients to another brand.

STRADE BIANCHE, TIRRENO-ADRIATICO AND MILAN-SAN REMO TEAMS