Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič are the outstanding favourites for the 2023 Giro d'Italia. But can they be beaten?
Their closest rivals think so, especially in an unpredictable Grand Tour like the Giro d'Italia, where a strong team, fortune and mental fortitude are as important as fitness and the tag of favourite.
Ineos Grenadiers, EF Education-EasyPost, UAE Team Emirates and Bahrain Victorious have all selected multiple leaders for their eight-rider Giro teams, convinced they can challenge for the maglia rosa, perhaps toppling Evenepoel and Roglič or at least finishing on the final podium in Rome on May 28.
Ineos Grenadiers appear to be targeting overall victory at the Giro d'Italia more than at the Tour de France, where Tom Pidcock, Egan Bernal and Dani Martínez will form an experimental leadership trio. Geraint Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Pavel Sivakov and Thymen Arensman will form a strong GC quartet in Italy in May, with the British team's Grand Tour pedigree an extra asset.
UAE Team Emirates have the ever-reliable João Almeida and another strong GC squad with Brandon McNulty, Jay Vine and Davide Formolo. It will be fascinating to see what the American time trialist and Australian climber can do individually and as part of the team.
EF Education-EasyPost have veteran Rigoberto Urán, Hugh Carthy and Jefferson Cepeda in their squad, while a back on form Jack Haig, Santiago Buitrago and Damiano Caruso lead Bahrain Victorious and another strong GC team.
There are also free electrons like Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) in his last Giro of his career, Eddie Dunbar on his debut as Jayco-Alula team leader and Aleksandr Vlasov and Lennard Kämna of the 2022 Giro winning team Bora-Hansgrohe.
With neither Soudal-QuickStep nor Jumbo-Visma likely or willing to control the race, this year's Giro d'Italia could be a continuous game of Grand Tour snakes and ladders. The leadership of the 2023 Giro d'Italia could change multiple times between the start in Fossacesia Marina on Saturday and the final crowning stage around Rome on Sunday, May 28 and any of these riders could emerge to challenge for overall victory.
Defending a time trial advantage might not be enough
Evenepoel will start the Giro d'Italia determined to gain as much as he can on his overall rivals in the time trials.
He is keen to win the 19.6km stage 1 time trial along the Adriatic coast on Saturday and then also gain time in the flat and fast 35 km time trial to Cesena on stage 9. Roglič will surely follow a similar strategy, perhaps also trying to take stage wins and bonus seconds on the early hilly finishes at Lago Laceno and Gran Sasso d'Italia.
Both could start the second half of the Giro d'Italia with a lead of a minute on their rivals. However, their real test will be in the second half of the race and the final mountain stages, when a minute could melt like the Italian spring snow if Evenepoel or Roglič endure a bad day at altitude or on a hard mountain finish.
Support during the key stages will be a significant factor, with even Evenepoel and Roglič only able to control a limited number of attacks.
Roglič's Jumbo-Visma team is perhaps more experienced in Grand Tour racing but, like Evenepoel's Soudal-QuickStep squad, they lack alternative leaders and strength in depth. Roglič can count on Sep Kuss and Evenepoel will have 22-year-old Ilan Van Wilder with him in the mountains but the other teams will have several riders in any select group that forms on the mountains and so can play a wide variety of tactical games.
Evenepoel learned the hard way about Grand Tour racing at the 2021 Giro d'Italia. He was still inexperienced but was also overconfident, despite returning from his hip fracture at Il Lombardia. He started aggressively but then faded and ultimately abandoned.
Roglič has also cracked at the Corsa Rosa. He had a chance of victory in 2019 but he and Vincenzo Nibali raced against each other, allowing Richard Carapaz to gain time on several stages and so take the maglia rosa. The Slovenian is prone to crashing and seems to suffer the unpredictability of the Giro more than most, despite claiming in 2019 when he crashed in the maglia rosa, that he liked the "grande casino" – the chaos of the Giro.
Max Sciandri was a directeur sportif at Movistar when Carapaz beat Nibali and Roglič. He knows all about taking advantage of the unpredictability of the Giro.
"We won the Giro with Richard Carapaz when Nibali and Roglič got distracted by watching each other, there's a real risk Evenepoel and Roglič could make the same mistake," Sciandri tells Cyclingnews.
"You can never predict what will happen at the Giro due to the route, the weather or just a sketchy descent, anything can turn the race upside down. That's the beauty of the Giro.
"It is possible for a number of riders to win but it's never easy because you never know when your chance will come. Ineos Grenadiers, UAE Team Emirates, Bahrain Victorious and EF Education-EasyPost have to be ready to take advantage of opportunities that come their way."
Ineos Grenadiers with multiple options and a strong team
Ineos Grenadiers have lost their title of Grand Tour dominators to UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma in recent seasons but their pedigree remains.
Thomas won the 2018 Tour de France and was third only last year, Geoghegan Hart won the Giro d'Italia in 2020 plus his third place at Tirreno-Adriatico and victory at the Tour of the Alps suggests he is back to his best.
Ineos Grenadiers will start the Giro d'Italia humbly after Thomas' two crashes in 2017 and 2020 and Geoghegan Hart's two difficult recent seasons. However, they will arrive in Pescara for the Grande Partenza believing they have a chance.
"It'll be hard to beat Evenepoel and Roglič but it's not impossible," Thomas argues.
"They're two quality bike riders and amongst the best in the world in the last few years but we'll definitely go into the Giro with the belief that we can beat them.
"That's the great thing about the sport at the moment, there's a lot of guys who can perform and potentially be on the Giro podium."
Matteo Tosatto is the Ineos Grenadiers lead directeur sportif at the Giro d'Italia. He rode 34 Grand Tours during his career as a trusted domestique at Fassa Bortolo, QuickStep, Saxo Bank and then Tinkoff.
He believes that a united team will always be stronger than a talented but isolated individual leader.
"I was a domestique for all of my career, so I always focused on the team strength," he tells Cyclingnews.
"Evenepoel and Roglič are the favourites going into the Giro after the way they battled at the Volta a Catalunya. But the strength of our team will be our extra advantage. Our guys are mature, ready and hungry. We'll be starting the Giro with guys who have won the Tour and won the Giro. That's an advantage on other teams for sure. We know how to win Grand Tours."
"There's talk about the time gained or lost in the time trials, but nobody will win or lose the Giro in the opening time trial. The last week will be decisive in every way, with even stages like the day in the high Alps to Crans Montana very important days."
Tosatto is confident Thomas can come good in the final week and that Geoghegan Hart can be as good as he was in 2020.
"I think that the most important thing for Tao after his tough two years, is his continuity. For him it's important to be in a good place mentally, when his head is good, his legs are good too," Tosatto suggests.
The 28-year-old Londoner seemed in a very good place as he dominated the Tour of the Alps. He has a new coach and has found his consistency and so his self-confidence.
"At the Giro, like in training, if you can stay calm, never go to the limit, I think you can gain a lot from that mentality. It can perhaps be the big difference in a Grand Tour," he said during the Tour of the Alps.
"I've always believed that if I can get past the opening 10 days of a Grand Tour without crashing and without problems, then my forte is the final week when I can go best in races."
Jack Haig and Hugh Carthy are dangerous outsiders
Jack Haig can surely relate to Geoghegan Hart's comments. He crashed out of the Tour de France in both 2021 and 2022 but also finished third overall in the 2021 Vuelta a España.
His complex wrist fracture on stage 5 of the 2022 Tour de France meant he did not race for the rest of the season but he appeared back to his best at the Tour of the Alps as he tried to attack Geoghegan Hart almost daily.
Haig made a strong partnership with pure climber Buitrago. The two recently spent time together at altitude and took turns to attack during the Tour of the Alps. We can expect the same from them at the Giro d'Italia as they search for stage victories in the mountains and a podium place.
Mikel Landa has often led Bahrain Victorious but has been saved for the mountainous and time trial-lite Tour de France. That gives Haig, Buitrago and Caruso the freedom to race for themselves and aim high.
"There is probably a group from third to eighth that is really quite close," Haig says of the overall contenders.
"I'd really like to aim for a top five overall, I'd be happy with that," Haig told Cyclingnews in an exclusive interview.
"If any of us want to beat Evenepoel and Roglič we probably need to look for opportunities and bad moments those two might have and for the racing between ourselves, it is obviously quite tricky but also opportunistic."
EF Education-EasyPost will be equally as audacious with Uran and Carthy. They have little to lose if one of them blows up by going on the attack but then could climb back up the overall classification by going in the expected breakaways in the final week.
Uran opted to miss the Tour of the Alps due to allergy problems but is expected to join forces with Carthy as EF Education-EasyPost's yin and yang.
"I'll start with serious overall ambitions and see how it goes," Carthy tells Cyclingnews.
"I'm not under stress or pressure. I'll try and lay low for the first two weeks and see how things go, then we'll see what happens."
Former Giro d'Italia stage winner Tejay Van Garderen will be in the EF Education-EasyPost team cars alongside Matti Breschel.
"We've got multiple options with Rigo Uran and Hugh Carthy. We've also got Magnus Cort and Ben Healy for stage wins, so we plan to race the Giro hard," he tells Cyclingnews, well aware of the way the battle for the Giro d'Italia podium can change suddenly in the final week.
"The Giro is the most unpredictable Grand Tour of the three, people come back from big time losses," he predicts.
"Think of Nibali when Kruijswijk was leading in 2016 or when Froome dethroned Simon Yates and Dumoulin. That's the Giro, it often flips in the third week.
"That suits us and everyone racing in Evenepoel's and Roglič's shadow. They've both shown great form so far this season but in the third week of the Giro, anything can happen."
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