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Who will win the 2023 Giro d'Italia? There's a clear top two favourites coming into the race, with a host of Grand Tour hopefuls and past winners lining up behind in the battle for the podium in Rome.
Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma)
Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) battles Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) to the line in Stage 1 of the Volta a Catalunya
Key 2023 results: 1st Volta a Catalunya, 1st Tirreno-Adriatico
Best Grand Tour performances: 3-time Vuelta a Espana – 1st, Tour de France – 2nd, Giro d’Italia – 3rd
Roglič ticks all the boxes to be the winner of this Giro d’Italia. He’s won every stage race he’s started in so far this season, beating almost all of the contenders that he’ll face in Italy at Tirreno-Adriatico and Volta a Catalunya.
In that, there were five stage wins and three second-place finishes, a couple behind Evenepoel. Somehow, all the talk is about Evenepoel, well we know why, but it’s disrespectful to Roglič to suggest that he’s not equal favourite if not ahead of his younger rival at present.
He is still one of the best time triallists going around, however he is not the best, and he’ll certainly have in the back of his mind that Evenepoel put 48 seconds into him last year at La Vuelta on a pan-flat course, with three TTs in the Giro parcours. He’ll be one of the best-placed to pick up bonus seconds from sprints, he’s won Grand Tour stages that were expected to be ones for the sprinters, and even a short incline leading to the finish line gives the former ski jumper a chance to show off his signature podium celebration.
Watch highlights from Roglic's 2023 wins!
Winning moment: Stage 1 - Volta a Catalunya 2023
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep)
Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) celebrates after crossing the finish line of Stage 18
Key 2023 results: 1st Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 2nd Volta a Catalunya, 1st UAE Tour.
Best Grand Tour performances: 2022 Vuelta – 1st
The Belgian phenomenon is already one of the best cyclists in the world and is continuing to get better and better from the look of things. He is a world-class time triallist, a climber with a brilliant turn of pace, and he can handle himself over a range of terrain and in almost any conditions.
In recent years, it’s been his impetuous nature that has got him in trouble more than his ability, he looked to be in everything in the 2021 Giro d’Italia when it was his first race back from a long injury layoff. He tired and eventually abandoned the race, but he’s won a couple of Liege-Bastogne-Liege titles, the world championships and the Vuelta a Espana since then, so there’s been a lot of maturing.
He did show signs of being irritated by Primož Roglič during the Volta a Catalunya where the pair were more or less equal in ability, but the more experienced Slovenian triumphed at the important moments and was then able to mark a frustrated Evenepoel for the rest of the race.
Watch highlights of Evenepoel's 2023 wins!
Winning moment: Men's Race - Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2023
Tao Geoghegan Hart (INEOS Grenadiers)
Tao Geoghegan Hart of Team Ineos celebrates his Giro d'Italia victory Source: Getty / Getty Images
Key 2023 results: 1st Tour of the Alps, 3rd Tirreno-Adriatico, 6th Ruta del Sol, 3rd Volta Valenciana
Best Grand Tour performances: 2020 Giro d'Italia – 1st
It has been a barren few years for Geoghegan Hart since his breakout success just ahead of Australian Jai Hindley in the 2020 Giro d’Italia. That performance was looking like it might have been the outlier in the London-born rider’s career, after two years without any victories, but 2023 has seen a return to form.
He has been in consistently impressive form throughout the year, but it was his Tour of the Alps performance that really shot him up the contender rankings for this year’s Giro. In winning two stages, and also looking very assured in defending the leader’s jersey on the hardest stage of the race, Geoghegan Hart was more his 2020 self.
He's below Roglič and Evenepoel in time-trialling ability, but he’s got a good kick at the finish to sprint for bonus seconds and a laid-back mentality that seems well-suited to winning Grand Tours.
INEOS also have Geraint Thomas, Thymen Arensman and Pavel Sivakov on their provisional start list, any of those could be their race leader here. Thomas in particular, while his form has been pretty poor so far this season, has shown he gets himself up for the big races, almost regardless of results heading in.
João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates)
Key 2023 results: 2nd Tirreno-Adriatico, 3rd Volta a Catalunya, 6th Volta ao Algarve
Best Grand Tour performances: 4th at 2020 Giro, 6th at 2021 Giro, 5th at 2022 Vuelta
Almeida made his mark as a young rider as a precocious talent who could do a lot of things and packed a pretty formidable sprint as well. In his maturation into a Grand Tour contender, the Portuguese rider has become much more of a grinder. While others attack, Almeida sets his own tempo and comes back over and over again.
Still only 24, Almeida has had his strongest start to a season in his career, and comes off the back of fifth overall at last year’s Vuelta and what probably should have been a podium finish in last year’s Giro if not for him contracting a nasty case of COVID-19.
He's looked good at every race, but at Catalunya it was very much a case of Roglič and Evenepoel being first and second, daylight third, then Almeida at the head of the chasing pack.
Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious)
Jack Haig of Bahrain Victorious finishes strong on Stage 9 of the Vuelta a Espana 2021. Source: Getty / Getty Images
Key 2023 results: 3rd Tour of the Alps, DNF Volta a Catalunya, 10th Paris-Nice, 11th Ruta del Sol
Best Grand Tour results: 3rd at 2021 Vuelta
The Australian Grand Tour contender has spent his whole cycling career steadily building himself into a rider who can challenge for the win in the hardest races. He’s not the most dynamic of riders, he’ll give up some time to the top riders in the time trial but he excels on the long, hard climbs where the Grand Tours are won. The harder the better for the Queensland-born rider in general, and a return to the Giro seems a good option after two years of consecutive crashes out of the Tour de France.
Haig is the probable leader of the Bahrain Victorious squad which also boasts Gino Mader, Damiano Caruso and Santiago Buitrago, who have all got potential for leadership at this race, even though Haig should be considered the top option.
Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates)
Jay Vine in action for UAE Team Emirates
Key 2023 results: 1st Tour Down Under, 1st Australian National Time Trial Championships
Best Grand Tour performances: 2-time stage winner at Vuelta a Espana
Australian Jay Vine enters the race as an interesting name in the GC calculations. His Vuelta a Espana performances included climbs that were better than the riders contending for the leader’s jersey, and he was on track to sweep the mountains classification there before he crashed out.
Taking that next step and becoming a contender for the Grand Tours was going to be the task for 2023, with a surprise move to UAE Team Emirates giving him the support to pursue the ambitions with a major squad built for the mountains. He started in incredibly impressive fashion with a national championships time trial victory which was backed up with the Tour Down Under overall win.
The UAE Tour was an objective as his new team’s home tour a good spot to turn some more heads, but he abandoned the race with knee pain and hasn’t been sighted in competition since. He took three weeks off hard training, and has been slowly building himself back up. He’s been involved in altitude camps with the team, and he’s on the startlist, so he must be in good enough shape to race. The question will be whether that is good enough to match up with the top names here, or if he’s going to have a support role for Almeida that could transition into a free role in the latter stages.
Other contenders for the Giro d'Italia general classification:
Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost), Lennard Kämna, Aleksandr Vlasov (both Bora-Hansgrohe), Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo).
Who is going to win the 2023 Giro d'Italia?
Remco Evenepoel. I can't go beyond him or Roglič for the win, and while the Slovenian just had the ascendancy at Catalunya, three week races have often held pitfalls for Roglič, and Evenepoel is going to hold at least a little bit of a lead from all the time trials in this year's race.
Evenepoel's team has maybe slightly more depth in climbing talent to support their leader as well if they need to defend or apply pressure to their rivals.
We'll have the commentary team from SBS weigh in as well on the hopes for the general classification with their own opinions which we'll include here as well.
