The 2026 Giro d’Italia is officially underway with Soudal Quick-Step’s Paul Magnier taking the first maglia rosa in Bulgaria after a crash-marred finale.
While many think the GC is a foregone conclusion, there’s a whole lot more to this race than the GC winner. Here are seven stories to track across the next three weeks.
1. Jonas Vingegaard and potential entry to an exclusive club
What do Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali and Chris Froome have in common? They have all won all three of cycling’s Grand Tours. Should Jonas Vingegaard crest the top step of the Giro d’Italia podium, he’ll slot in as only the eighth man in history to achieve the feat having already obtained the maillot jaune in 2022 and 2023 and the maillot rojo in 2025. Notably, he’ll do it before Tadej Pogačar.
He heads into this race as the big favourite, and so far this season he has won both stage races he has entered in Paris-Nice and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, and both times he did it in dominant fashion.
2. Red Bulls to be let loose
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are deploying a co-leadership strategy at the Giro with Giulio Pellizzari and Jai Hindley. Pellizzari loves racing here, finishing sixth overall last season in a late pivot after the abandonment of team leader Primož Roglič, and Hindley won the whole thing back in 2022. There’s no reason that either can’t podium realistically.
If I had to lay a prediction on the table, the Italian could just grab second overall if they play their cards right. So far this season, Pellizzari has been flying through third places at the Volta Comunitat Valenciana and Tirreno-Adriatico, and he took his first stage race victory at the Tour of the Alps. Don’t write Hindley off either, a strong climber licking his lips at the first big finish on Blockhaus, a climb he won atop in 2022. This duo were also deployed at the Vuelta last year when Hindley finished fourth and Pellizzari sixth, so it will be interesting to see how this dynamic develops this time around.
3. Who can complete the stage win set?
A few riders in the peloton have already claimed stage wins at the Tour de France and Vuelta a España with just the Giro d’Italia remaining to complete their Grand Tour stage win set. The first and most likely is obviously Jonas Vingegaard, who will want to win in the mountains to secure the maglia rosa. Adam Yates is also one to watch for completing the triple. If his GC aspirations fail for UAE Team Emirates XRG, then hunting stages will be the name of the game, unless he pulls off a Simon.
The others to watch include Vingegaard’s teammate Sepp Kuss, veterans Wout Poels (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Warren Barguil (Picnic-PostNL), and 26-year-old Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers), who is the youngest of the lot.
4. Sprinter battles
The sprinting field at this year’s Giro is led by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek). A beast in sprints and consistently dominant in points competitions, Milan already has six victories this season and can add to his tally of four stage wins in the Giro while hunting down the ciclamino jersey, which he last won in 2024.
Looking to defeat the giant is Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech), who has free reign to lead the team in the absence of Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen but is yet to win this season, and Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM), who has emerged as a real contender thanks to an impressive start to the season, which saw victories in the Tour Down Under and Tirreno-Adriatico as well as a strong presence in the Classics.
Dylan Groenewegen will also want to shine for the debut of Unibet Rose Rockets in Grand Tour racing, as too will Paul Magnier for Soudal Quick-Step (who claimed victory on Stage 1) and Arnaud De Lie for Lotte Intermarché, although the latter had to skip the team presentation due to illness. It turns out similar issues have hit quite a few after racing on cowpat-laden roads at the Famenne Ardenne Classic. We never said cycling was glamourous.
5. The Red Bull KM
The Red Bull KM returns this year, which, despite the name, is not solely for the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe riders. The special stretch will bring bonus seconds at the line and feature in all stages apart from the time-trial close to the day’s actual finish location. The first through the Red Bull KM gets six seconds, second gets four and third gets two.
This is the only opportunity for riders to get bonus seconds aside from stage finishes. Last year’s second overall rider Isaac del Toro picked up 14 bonus seconds through this classification.
The furthest Red Bull KM point away from the finish line occurs on Stage 15, where it sits 42.2km from the end of the day, and the closest comes on Stage 9 just 11.4km away. It things look pretty tight at the top, this could prove decisive.
6. Egan Bernal returns
Egan Bernal won the Giro d’Italia in 2021, his second Grand Tour win after the 2019 Tour de France. In 2022 however, the Colombian suffered a horror training crash that almost cost him his life. Remarkably, he was back cycling just a few months later.
While not at the same level as he once was, Bernal has been rediscovering his identity on the bike and steadily rebuilding his form over the last few years. Last season was his best since that crash, racing to seventh overall at the Giro and claiming a stage victory at the Vuelta. This season he looks to have improved once more, picking up a second place to Pellizzari at the Tour of the Alps and fifth place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
He’s on the start line as joint leader alongside Thymen Arensman for the rebranded Netcompany Ineos. Both riders could crack the top ten on GC and pick up a win along the way, Bernal in particular will have fond memories of the Passo Giau from his famous – albeit untelevised – win in the snow in 2021, and that features this time on Stage 19.
7. A whole heap of debutants
The peloton is packing a lot of debutants at the Giro this year, 68 of them to be exact, from the youngest rider in the race Filippo Turconi (Bardiani CSF 7 Saber) to the more established presence of 35-year-old Oliver Naesen (Decathlon CMA CGM). Vingegaard is the biggest name to be gracing the Giro start list for the first time, as will frequent Vuelta podium finisher Enric Mas (Movistar).
Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates XRG) is one of the youngest riders making his debut, and barring any craziness will be in support of leader Adam Yates. The 21-year-old has enjoyed some highs this year with overall victory at the UAE Tour and sixth place at Strade Bianche, but has also had a couple of unfortunate moments.
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