Grand Tour season is upon us once more. Last year, as far as the GC contests were concerned, these three races were dominated by the two super-teams – UAE Team Emirates XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike – who occupied the two top spots at each of the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España. And after a spate of dropouts, it’s Visma’s Jonas Vingegaard who enters this one the resounding pink jersey favourite.

However, the start list of the 2026 Giro still shows stacked field where even the smaller teams and wildcard entries have stars capable of igniting the race. The day-by-day battle for stage wins will be hotly contested, with no shortage of challengers.

Tadej Pogačar, Visma-Lease a Bike have won four – including Simon Yates’s thrilling last-minute coup at last year’s Giro. This team would be the dons of Grand Tour racing were it not for their Slovenian nemesis. They’ll be thankful, then, that Pogačar is sitting this one out, making their man Jonas Vingegaard the overwhelming favourite as he makes his Giro debut.

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Embarking on an ambitious Giro-Tour double, Vingegaard has said that the plan for him is to steadily improve as the season goes on, before peaking in July. Given the way he has started 2026, with crushing overall victories at both Paris-Nice and Volta a Catalunya, either he is going to bring sublime form to the Giro and be even better come the Tour, or is in danger of peaking too soon.

The Dane faces a tricky balancing act: he wants to win, of course, but not by expending too much energy ahead of the Tour. His Visma-Lease a Bike team don’t want to stretch their resources too thin, and so will be resting Wout Van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson. That said, Vingegaard will have climbing domestique par excellence Sepp Kuss to support him in the mountains.

Lidl-Trek have the talent to set the Giro alight again. There’s a shift in personnel, with Jonathan Milan replacing Mads Pedersen, and therefore also a shift in approach away from Pedersen’s hyperactive pursuit of points every day and towards a sharper focus on the sprint stage. As a twotime maglia ciclamino winner, Milan will also strive to repeat Pedersen’s victory in that classification.

In fact, Lidl-Trek could compete for all three of the main jerseys, with 2019 King of the Mountains Giulio Ciccone a candidate for that competition, and Derek Gee-West the pink jersey if he shows the form that saw him place fourth overall last year.

Ineos Grenadiers used to be so good at the Giro d’Italia. They won the pink jersey here three times in four years between 2018 and 2021 with Chris Froome, Tao Geoghegan Hart and Egan Bernal, and even as their Tour de France form slipped, they continued to make the podium. Last year, when Bernal was their highest finisher, in seventh overall, was their first time off the podium this decade, reflecting a transition away from racing for GC and towards aggressive tactics and chasing stage wins.

How will the newly minted Netcompany-Ineos approach this year’s race? It looks like a two-pronged strategy led by previous winner Egan Bernal and double Tour stage winner Thymen Arensman. Both are capable of a GC top 10, as well as stage wins. Australian Jack Haig will back them up in the mountains. The rest of the team looks strong, with Filippo Ganna, Connor Swift and Ben Turner all experienced bunch engines, ready to shepherd the leaders around the peloton. The Giro represents a rebirth for the team, with added impetus and a bigger budget. It’s too soon to see any benefits from that, but showing intent will be key.

Ben Turner

Ben Turner will offer solid support to Bernal and Arensman

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Decathlon roster, but superstar youngster Paul Seixas sits this one out – in order to concentrate on the Tour de France as we’ve just learned. Gall will be joined in Italy by veteran rouleur Oliver Naesen and helped on the climbs by Gregor Mühlberger. Covering all bases, the team will also field a sprinter in Tobias Lund Andresen, who could vie for stage wins.

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Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s squad since their title sponsor’s investment that – even in the absence of former Giro winner Primož Roglič, rising star Florian Lipowitz and marquee signing Remco Evenepoel – they have multiple options for the GC. The strongest, in terms of form, is 22-year-old Giulio Pellizzari, who has continued to improve since fi nishing sixth overall at last year’s Giro. He was third at Tirreno-Adriatico, then won the Tour of the Alps.

In terms of Grand Tour pedigree, however, the man who won them the 2022 Giro, Jai Hindley, stands out; his lack of form going into the race shouldn’t be too much of a worry, remembering how the shrewd Australian peaked from similarly underwhelming form in time for his previous Giro success.

And as a wildcard option there is Aleksandr Vlasov who, though not at his best for a while now, still has great talent. Whoever they end up backing, the team won’t want a repeat of last year, when leaders Roglič and Hindley both crashed out of contention in the first week. With no standout sprinting option, aside from Danny Van Poppel, they’re going all-in for a pink jersey challenge.

Richard Carapaz became the umpteenth GC contender to pull out of the Giro. The Ecuadorean took longer than expected to recover from an operation to remove a perineal cyst on his lower spine after the Volta a Catalunya in late March. It left the American team without an obvious leader, but perhaps opened the door to other opportunities.

While Carapaz could have challenged for the podium – he was third last year – it’s equally true that, at 32, his best years might be behind him. Instead, Michael Valgren, James Shaw, Sean Quinn and others will now be tasked with getting into breaks, getting noticed and trying to nab a stage win.

wildcard Grand Tour debutants reason to get excited. Even from poor form the Dutchman tends to come good for at least one sprint win, as he has in five of his last eight Grand Tours. And one win would be enough to make their Giro a resounding success.