Despite last-minute drop-outs from GC contenders João Almeida and Richard Carapaz, there are still plenty of strong riders lining up for the start of the Giro d’Italia in Bulgaria this Friday. Three weeks of riding through the Italian countryside (after starting in Bulgaria) will see the general classification battle shape up day-by-day; is Jonas Vingegaard’s title as safe as it seems from the outset?
This is our list of the top contenders vying for the maglia rosa in 2026.
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Jonas Vingegaard
29 | Den | Visma-Lease a Bike
Previous Giro starts: 0
Best GC result: N/A
Best stage result: N/A
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This will be Jonas Vingegaard’s first participation in the Giro d’Italia. Having won the Vuelta and the Tour de France, he has made no secret of the fact he’d love to complete the full set of Grand Tours.
“I chose the Giro because it’s one of the most prestigious competitions in the world, and because I’ve never raced it before,” he said following the announcement. He also suggested that the course is not “excessively hard”, so would allow him to recover in time for the Tour de France in July.
The Dane will start as the clear favourite. Some of his most potent rivals include rising Italian star Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and Thymen Arensman (Netcompany-Ineos), a double mountains stage winner at last year’s Tour de France and a fine time triallist.
But few have been able to get close to Vingegaard in the past two Tours de France, despite a huge crash at Itzulia Basque Country in 2024 that left the Dane below par for a long, long time – possibly until right now.
“I feel like I’ve spent the last two years fighting my way back to that level – back to the Jonas I was before my crash,” he said in a recent interview. His performances so far this season have suggested he could be there. His 4.23 winning margin on GC at Paris-Nice in March was the biggest since 1939, and he took an impressive win at the more recent Volta a Catalunya.
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Giulio Pellizzari
22 | Ita | Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
Previous Giro starts: 2
Best GC result: 6th (2025)
Best stage result: 2nd (2024)
While the cycling world is currently being wooed by French teen sensation Paul Seixas, another youngster with impressive chops has slipped in almost under the radar.
Despite his tender 22 years, Giulio Pellizzari already has a solid Giro d’Italia record that he will hope to build on this month. He performed well at the Vuelta a España last year too, matching his sixth overall from the Giro and winning a first Grand Tour stage.
Most recently, the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider has indicated his excellent current condition by winning two stages on the way to overall victory at the Tour of the Alps in Austria and Italy.
Speaking after the final stage, Pellizzari’s DS Christian Pömer, said: “We can be confident now to have a chance to fight for the podium at the Giro.” The Tour of the Alps result “scares me a little”, he said, because of the superstition that the winner there rarely does well at the Giro, adding, “But with [Tadej] Pogačar we’ve seen the curse of the rainbow jersey doesn’t exist anymore, and we hope for the same for Tour of the Alps and the Giro.”
Hailing from Camerino in central Italy, Pellizzari is the home nation’s greatest hope of ending a 10-year GC-winners’ drought at the Giro. Pellizzari’s ability to fulfil those hopes has been further boosted by his improved time trialling, which he can now call a strength alongside his natural climbing ability. In 2024 he was gifted a maglia rosa by his idol Tadej Pogačar; it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that this year he could wear it for real.
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Jai Hindley
29 | Aus | Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
Previous Giro starts: 5
Best GC result: 1st (2022)
Best stage result: 1st (x2) in 2020, ‘22
One of two former winners of the Giro d’Italia on the start list, Jai Hindley comes into the race as a co-leader for Red Bull alongside Italian hope Giulio Pellizzari. The 29-year-old has not had a 2026 to shout about, with 17th place overall at the Volta a Catalunya following 22nd place at Tirreno-Adriatico, but he has the experience to make things count over the three weeks.
Last year, Hindley crashed out of the Giro on stage six, leaving Pellizzari clear to finish sixth overall; Red Bull will hope that the pair can work together more effectively over the three weeks this time around, presenting two viable GC options for Jonas Vingegaard to worry about.
While he hasn’t won a Grand Tour since his sole Giro win in 2022, Hindley has finished in the top-10 three times since, twice at the Vuelta a España and once at the Tour de France, including fourth overall at last summer’s Vuelta. A win would be a surprise, as it was in 2022 when the Australian overcame Richard Carapaz and Mikel Landa to pull on the pink jersey, but it should not be ruled out. This Giro’s relative lack of attritional climbing should open up the race a bit more, and the inclusion of just one time trial won’t be too detrimental to his chances.
His 2022 win was built on solid consistency before a penultimate-day triumph, a lot like Simon Yates’s glory last year. There’s no reason why Hindley could not do it again. After all, shocks seem to happen more at the Giro than other Grand Tours. In a race short on top GC talent, the canny Australian might just have the ability to sneak through the pack while all eyes are on Pellizzari and Vingegaard.
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Ben O’Connor
30 | Aus | Jayco-AlUla
Previous Giro starts: 4
Best GC result: 4th (2024)
Best stage result: 1st (2020)
A bold and brilliant climber, capable of winning stages solo from the break, O’Connor starts his fifth Giro with an impressive palmarès, having taken stage victories in all the Grand Tours.
The Australian took his first Grand Tour stage win at the Giro in 2020, following it up in 2021 with a stage win at the Tour de France and an impressive fourth on GC. O’Connor also finished fourth on GC at the Corsa Rosa in 2024, during his final year with Decathlon, when he later nailed a stage win and second place overall at the Vuelta a España. Last year, riding for Jayco-AlUla, he scored a stunning mountains stage win at the Tour, beating Pogačar over Col de la Loze. He has had a steady 2026 so far, but expect him to peak for the Giro and vie for a high GC placing.
Will Adam Yates step up to the plate at this year’s Giro?
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SPRINTERS AT THE GIRO
For months now, the peloton’s fastmen have been licking their lips at the Giro’s opening flat stage in Bulgaria and the chance to wear the race’s first pink jersey. There’s an impressive batch of sprinters starting this year, chief among them Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), the green jersey winner at last year’s Tour de France, who is probably the best sprinter in the world at the moment.
Challenging the Italian will be France’s 22-year-old rising star Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quick Step), author of a staggering 19 wins in 2025, and Dylan Groenewegen, who hasn’t won a Grand Tour stage since 2024, but has found renewed form at Unibet Rose Rockets this year, winning three races in five days back in March. Expect to also see Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling), Casper van Uden (Picnic PostNL) and Pascal Ackermann (Jayco AlUla) at the pointy end of the flat days.
Adam Yates
33 | GBr | UAE Team Emirates-XRG
Previous Giro starts: 3
Best GC result: 9th (2017)
Best stage result: 4th (2015)
A veteran of 16 Grand Tours in 13 years as a pro, Yates will line up as one of the most experienced riders in the peloton, although this is only his third Giro. The UAE rider has favoured the Tour de France throughout his career, riding it nine times and finishing on the podium in 2023 when riding riding support or Tadej Pogačar.
A mountain domestique par excellence, Yates has always been happy to ride for others. However, it might be time for the Brit to step up – he has by far the best results this year of the UAE Giro team, including an impressive win at O Gran Camiño in April. What chance he follows in the footsteps of his twin brother, Simon last year? That would be a new one for the record books.
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Thymen Arensman
26 | Ned | Netcompany-Ineos
Previous Giro starts: 4
Best GC result: 6th (2023, 24)
Best stage result: 2nd (2022)
With a new jersey on his back and a capable co-pilot in team-mate Egan Bernal, in-form Dutchman Thymen Arensman should be gunning for a top-five place in what will be his fifth participation in the Italian tour. He has finished sixth here twice before, in 2023 and 2024, and last year won a brace of major mountains stages at the Tour de France, holding off both Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) on both occasions.
Tall, slender, and built for climbing, Arensman also has a strong time trial, which will be helpful but not crucial in this year’s single, flat TT on stage 10. Both Arensman and Bernal rode strongly at last month’s Tour of the Alps, filling out the podium behind winner Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), whom they’ll also face here at the Giro. As to which Netcompany rider will ultimately take the lead, their DS, Leonardo Basso insisted the “road will decide”.
Egan Bernal at the Giro d’Italia
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Egan Bernal
29 | Col | Netcompany-Ineos
Previous Giro starts: 2
Best GC result: 1st (2021)
Best stage result: 1st (x2) in 2021
After years spent fighting back from a devastating training crash, Egan Bernal appears to be closing in on his former, Tour de France-winning self. This year’s Giro will see him form one half of a two-pronged GC assault alongside team-mate Thymen Arensman.
Decked out in the red, yellow and blue Colombian national champion’s jersey, with a bike to match, Bernal is slowly amassing a series of results that do ample justice to his sharp looks. Last year’s seventh overall at the Giro d’Italia was by far his best Grand Tour GC ride since his 2022 crash, and he looks capable of building on that this year judging by his recent fifth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and second overall at the mountainous Tour of the Alps. What’s more, Netcompany DS Leonardo Basso says he has the “mentality” to match his pre-crash results too.
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Felix Gall
28 | Aut | Decathlon CMA CGM
Previous Giro starts: 1
Best GC result: 50th (2022)
Best stage result: 11th (2022)
The 2026 edition is only the second time Gall has raced the Giro d’Italia. His first appearance at the race, in 2022, was a Grand Tour initiation for the young AG2R rider. Now, four years later, at 28 years old and as Decathlon’s team leader, Gall will be returning to Italy with a roster of near-podium placings under his belt: fifth overall at the UAE Tour (with a third-place finish on the queen stage) and sixth at the Volta a Catalunya (finishing second on the key mountain stage).
A good climber and growing GC threat, the Austrian won a stage at the 2023 Tour de France and is now targeting a podium position at either the Giro or the Vuelta a España. The Italian race is his first major goal of the season.
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Derek Gee-West
28 | Can | Lidl-Trek
Previous Giro starts: 2
Best GC result: 4th (2025)
Best stage result: 2nd (2023)
Despite an impressive overall fourth place at last year’s Giro and a series of second-place stage finishes in his 2023 debut, Gee-West was, until February, without a team for the 2026 season. Since signing with his new team, Lidl-Trek, the Canadian has made no secret of his Giro d’Italia hopes.
But Gee-West’s Giro preparation was interrupted by an illness that saw him abandon last month’s Volta a Catalunya, missing out on important pre-Giro practice stages after a solid seventh place finish at the UAE Tour just before.
The 28-year-old’s Volta disappointment seems to have been a blip in his otherwise stacked pre-Giro calendar: the Canadian prefers to work the legs right up to his favourite race of the year. At April’s Tour of the Alps, he finished a solid 12th overall. Bolstered by a new team, Gee-West looks to be in a strong position heading into the race.
OUTSIDE OPTIONS FOR GIRO GLORY
Of all the possible remaining wildcard options for the GC, there is a former Grand Tour winner in Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike). The American won the Vuelta a España in 2023 and will work for Vingegaard, but is an able deputy. Tudor Pro Cycling rider Michael Storer is a fine climber who has placed 10th on GC at the previous two Giri d’Italia and, this season, fourth overall at the recent Tour of the Alps stage race. Expect to see the 29-year-old Aussie hunting down another high GC placing this month.
Movistar’s Enric Mas has ridden 14 Grand Tours already, but never the Giro – until now. With four Vuelta GC podiums and a brace of Tour top-sixes, expect to see him in the GC hunt. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Aleksandr Vlasov has two team-mates to ride for this year, but is easily capable of finishing in the top 10 as well. Fourth in 2021, he will take over leadership duties should injury or illness beset the other two mentioned in these pages.
