Anthony Tan
In the second part of our Giro preview, we assess who’s in the running to take out the title when the race concludes in Rome on May 31.
All 18 UCI WorldTour teams will be present on the start line in Nessebar, Bulgaria on Friday May 8, along with five UCI ProTeams: Bardiani-CSF 7 Saber, Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, Team Polti VisitMalta, Tudor Pro Cycling Team, and Unibet Rose Rockets.
Each of the 23 teams are permitted to field eight riders to allow for a 184-strong peloton. (For what it’s worth, it’s 23 teams of seven riders at the Tour de France.)
Aside from those vying for the Trofeo Senza Fine, the beautifully elegant, gold-ribboned trophy awarded to the overall winner, the Giro has more classifications than any other Grand Tour.
However major teams tend to focus on the overall classification and/or stage wins, and if those don’t materialise, then the minor classifications come into focus.
There’s Jonas…
If my proposition that it is the riders that determine how hard a race is more than the course, then the inclusion of Jonas Vingegaard, who has never before ridden the Giro, is set to make this edition of la corsa rosa very, very hard indeed.
Since 2021, out of the seven Grand Tours he’s ridden, he’s either finished first or second, which includes two Tours de France (2022, ‘23) and last year’s Vuelta a España.
Like Tadej Pogačar successfully did in 2024, the 29-year-old will embark on the Giro-Tour double. Prior to the Giro he has only raced twice – at Paris-Nice and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, both in March, both WorldTour stage races – and was dominant at both.
The day before he was crowned champion of the 2023 Tour, Vingegaard said: “Last year, I had a lot of injuries and sickness in the spring and this year I didn’t have anything, which made a big difference. I’m just developing, getting better and better. But it’s not like I’m gaining 20 percent every year; I’m just getting slightly better.”
Well, so far, so good, in 2026. No injuries, no sickness.
Appears to be in the same shape that won him the 2024 TdF with a 7’29 winning margin over Pogačar. And yes, that’s not a misprint; he destroyed The Pog that year.
And the rest…
Giulio Pellizzari and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)
It will be a dual-pronged GC attack from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, though based on recent results it’ll be more Giulio than Jai.
Let’s face some facts. Hindley has not won a race since the fifth stage of the 2023 Tour – almost three years ago. Pellizzari, on the other hand, was victorious just a few weeks back, when he won the final stage and overall classification at the Tour of the Alps, out-riding the INEOS Grenadiers duo of Egan Bernal and Thymen Arensman.
It was a hugely impressive performance by the 22-year-old Italian from San Severino Marche, who finished sixth overall at both the Giro and Vuelta last year.
Hindley’s last podium in a stage race was at the 2024 Tirreno-Adriatico, though last year he scored a pair of top-fives at Tirreno and the Vuelta, the latter a near career-saving ride. Still, one should not forget his gutting GC defeat to Tao Geoghegan Hart at the 2020 Giro and his redemptive victory two years later.
There’s also the fact that there was a seven-year gap between Simon Yates almost winning the Giro in 2018 and his rabbit-out-of-hat performance on the Colle delle Finestre last year, where he and his Visma-Lease a Bike team-mate Wout van Aert outrode and outsmarted Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz to claim overall honours.
Hindley’s contract is up for renewal at the end of the season. Can the just-turned 30-year-old from Perth produce something special à la Yates?
Egan Bernal and Thymen Arensman (Netcompany INEOS Cycling Team)
Another multi-pronged attack will come from the just-renamed Netcompany INEOS Cycling Team, formerly INEOS Grenadiers.
Bernal, who almost lost his life in a training accident in his native Colombia at the start of 2022, and was thought to be done for as far as a career as a pro cyclist was concerned, finished second to Pellizzari at the Tour of the Alps.
It feels as if the 2019 Tour and 2021 Giro champion has been around for donkey’s years and he kind of has – he made his professional debut 10 years ago, in 2016 – but he’s still only 29; given his arduous road to recovery and those missed years, his mind and body is that of an athlete some years younger.
Finishing one place behind Bernal at the Tour of the Alps and entering his peak years as a cyclist, Arensman is due for something big sooner rather than later.
He’s already done some big things – most notably a pair of mountain stage wins at the 2025 Tour and he’s twice finished sixth at the Giro (2023/24).
The road will decide whether it will be Bernal or this 26-year-old Dutchman who will lead their team into the final week, but with a recent cash injection and sporting leadership under Geraint Thomas, Director of Racing at Netcompany INEOS, they’d almost certainly be aiming for the podium and a couple of stage wins to boot.
Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
The original plan was for João Almeida to spearhead their quest for the Trofeo Senza Fine; the 27-year-old from Portugal finished seven times in the top 10 at Grand Tours and his best result was also his most recent: second to Vingegaard – by just 1’16 – at last year’s Vuelta.
However after a lacklustre showing at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya in March and no racing since, Almeida has been taken off the Giro roster and is penned for the Vuelta.
With Narváez (13th in his first TdF last year), Vine, Igor Arrieta, Jan Christen, Marc Soler and Adam Yates, UAE Team Emirates-XRG is, combined, a force to be reckoned with. Their strength in aggregate is likely to see them play a part when it comes to the final podium, or, at the very least, in the hunt for stage victories.
Notable others: Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla), Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling), Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM)
Big Ben. I don’t claim to know him personally, but if the Netflix documentary Unchained is an accurate reflection, even in part, it seems that, inside the spirited West Australian’s mind, his emotions can take the form of a fire-breathing dragon, able to torch the peloton with a few puffs, all the way to self-loathing, preferring to be anywhere other than the race he’s currently participating.
“This year will be my fifth Giro d’Italia, and I must say I always return with great pleasure,” he said in a press release. “The Giro is a race I’m very fond of, also because it was the first Grand Tour of my career and where I won my first Grand Tour stage in 2020.”
When he’s on fire, Ben O’Connor is capable of astounding performances, be it emphatic Grand Tour stage-winning escapes that are the stuff of legend, finishing as high as second overall at the Vuelta (2024), or fourth at the Giro (2024) and Tour (2021).
“Ben will be our man for the GC, and all his preparation has been geared towards the three weeks of racing that await us,” Steve Cummings, Jayco AlUla’s sport director for the Giro, said.
Out of the eight races totalling 29 days over 4,171 kilometres so far this year, the 30-year-old has been solid without being spectacular. Hopefully, he’s going in a little underdone, because the last stanza of the Giro, is, as always, a week-long trip to the hurt locker.
“This year’s route is very balanced,” said the Jayco AlUla leader, “with some key stages in the Alps and the one at the Blockhaus (Stage 7) that are very important to focus on, and several tricky stages, such as those in the Marche and Liguria.”
Which Ben will we get at the 2026 Giro? We’ll soon find out…
If Lady Luck is on his side, says his American team-mate Larry Warbasse, then Michael Storer can finish this Giro in the top five.
It’s a not far-fetched idea. Compared to fellow West Aussie O’Connor, who gets a ton of media exposure (and rightly so), the largely unheralded Storer finished tenth on GC the past two Giri d’Italia (2024-25) and last year experienced his best season to date, dominating the Tour of the Alps and finishing third behind Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel at the Giro di Lombardia, the final Monument of the season.
At this year’s Tour of the Alps it was evident the 29-year-old from Perth was at a rung below his 2025 level, which Warbasse says is a good thing. Time trials have long been his weakness, but out of 3,468 kilometres in this Giro, only 42 are against clock.
In contrast, there are 48,700 metres of elevation gain.
Put him down as a dark horse named Pegasus.
So much hype has been around Paul Seixas, his Decathlon CMA CGM team-mate, and what the French phenom can do in Grand Tours, but Felix Gall has already walked the walk: in the six Grand Tours he’s ridden, the 28-year-old has finished three times in the top 10.
Last year he finished fifth and eighth overall at the Tour and Vuelta; like Storer, his Achilles heel has always been time trials but with just one 42km ITT on Stage 10, should the stars align for Gall, a top five or better is within reach.
2026 Giro d’Italia: Prize money
| Position | Official Prize | Special Prize | Total |
| 1st overall | €115,668 | €150,000 | €265,668 |
| 2nd | €58,412 | €75,000 | €133,412 |
| 3rd | €28,801 | €40,000 | €68,801 |
| 4th | €14,516 | €7,000 | €21,516 |
| 5th | €11,654 | €6,500 | €18,154 |
| 6th | €8,588 | €8,588 | |
| 7th | €8,588 | €8,588 | |
| 8th | €5,725 | €5,725 | |
| 9th | €5,725 | €5,725 | |
| 10th–20th | €2,863 | €2,863 |
Other classifications
Stage winners: €11,010 (paid to 20th place)
Points (Ciclamino): €10,000 for the winner (paid to 5th place), plus €750 daily for the jersey wearer
Mountains (Blue): €5,000 for the winner (paid to 5th place)
Best Young Rider (White): €10,000 for the overall winner (paid to 5th place)
Super Team: €5,000 for the fastest team overall (paid to 5th place)
Total prize pool: €1,636,460
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Anthony Tan
Anthony Tan - One of Bicycling Australia’s longest-serving columnists, ‘Tan Man’ has a deep passion for the sport and is a natural communicator.
