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In the final of my three-part preview of the teams taking part in this year’s Giro d’Italia, we cover some of the top teams in the sport who will battle it out for general classification honors.
»Giro d’Italia teams preview (Part 1)
»Giro d’Italia teams preview (Part 2)
Orica-GreenEDGE
The past two years have seen Orica-GreenEDGE dominate the opening few days of racing through their team time trialing success.
In 2014, the team won the opening day TTT in Belfast, and held the jersey until Stage 7, with Michael Matthews winning another stage along the way.
Last year was similar to the previous year, with the team taking the opening TTT win, and once again Matthews came through with a win while in the pink.
However, this year’s squad for the Giro has seen a shifting from stage wins, to a general classification challenger in Esteban Chaves.
This does not though hamper their potential of winning the opening day team time trial in Apeldoorn.
The course is only 9.8 kilometres, so climbers Chaves, Ruben Plaza and Amets Txurruka should be safe from being dropped, while the team has time trialing horsepower in Sam Bewley, Micheal Hepburn, Svein Tuft and the in-form Damien Howson.
Luka Mezgec and Caleb Ewan should be extremely effective as well, as the short nature of the course will suit their outright speed when taking turns.
Chaves’ GC ambitions will be the team’s main focus, after the Colombian rode superbly at last year’s Vuelta a Espana to take two stage wins, spend a few days in the leader’s jersey and finish fifth overall. The only issue for Chaves is that he has not had any decent results so far this year, but he has been back training at high altitude in Colombia for the past month or so.
He will be supported in the mountains by double Grand Tour stage winner from last year Plaza and the well-rounded Txurruka, two new editions to the team for season 2016.
In terms of the sprints, Ewan gets to start his second Grand Tour, after taking a win on Stage 5 of the Vuelta last year. He will be protected by both the time trial specialists, and lead-out man Mezgec, a former Giro d’Italia stage winner.
Team Giant-Alpecin
Tom Dumoulin comes to the Giro after showing the world last year that he is not just a world class time trialist, but a Grand Tour winner in the making as well. He led the Vuelta up until the end of Stage 19, when his climbing legs gave up, and eventually he dropped dramatically to sixth place.
He has had a solid start to the season, including finishing inside the top five at the recently completed Tour de Romandie, while also finishing inside the top five at the early season test the Tour of Oman.
A top ten should be a guarantee for Dumoulin after his performance at the Vuelta, but with a lack of strong teammates in the mountains, he will have to do it once again on his own.
Team Katusha
The second of the two Russian teams in the race, Katusha have a GC hopeful in Illnur Zakarin who, over the last two months, finished fourth at Romandie, fifth at Liege, seventh at the Volta a Catalunya, and fourth on general classification with a win on Stage 6 at Paris-Nice.
It is an impressive start to the season, but with no experience leading a team at Grand Tours, it remains to be seen what impact he will have.
He will be supported in the mountains by Rein Taarmae, and watch out for Alexander Porsev and Alexey Tsatevich in the sprints.
Team Lotto-NL Jumbo
Steven Kruijswijk finished seventh at last year’s edition of the race, and narrowly missed out on winning the mountains jersey, finishing third in that competition.
His build-up to this year’s race is similar to last year, riding the Tour de Yorkshire as his only preparation. He climbed well on the final stage of that race, and managed to finish fifth on GC.
If he hits the form of this time last year, he’s a potential contender for a top-five place overall, however has limited support in the mountains.
In the off-season talented Italian Enrico Battaglin changed from the familiar surroundings of Bardiani-CSF, to the Dutch squad Lotto-NL Jumbo. If you happened to read the first part of the preview, you will remember that Battaglin has won two stages previously at the Giro, 2013 Stage 4 and 2014 Stage 14.
The switch so far has been fairly underwhelming, with Battaglin not replicating the wins he took at Bardiani as of yet.
Moreno Hofland will be the team’s sprinter. A solid rider with a decent palmares, look for the 24-year-old to be around the top five in the sprints.
Team Sky
A team of climbers, with a sprinter thrown into the middle is how Sky lines up for most Grand Tours these days.
This time around, Mikel Landa is the GC hope, while Italian fastman Elia Viviani will look to add to his Stage 2 win from last year’s edition of the race.
With only 15 race days thus far, Landa had a low-key start to the year – until he won Stage 2 and the general classification of the Giro del Trentino two weeks ago against some very handy opposition.
He starts his first Grand Tour for Sky and needs to live up to the hype he built after his third-place finish at the Giro last year.
He was stronger than teammate Fabio Aru last year, but never got the nod. But Sky have no second hope – they are all in for Landa.
Ian Boswell, Phillip Deignan, Sebastian Henao, David Lopez, Nicholas Roche and Mikel Nieve will look after Landa when the road goes up, with experienced German Christian Knees taking up the responsibility of protecting him along the flatter roads.
Look for Sky to be up near the front on the early stages, keeping Landa out of trouble.
Viviani has a difficult race ahead, primarily fending for himself. However, he is getting used to that role now, and should still perform well.
Tinkoff
Rafal Majka continues to make inroads towards the top step of a Grand Tour podium. Having finished sixth at the 2014 Giro, he finished on the podium at the 2015 Vuelta.
One of Majka’s strength is his ability to ride consistently over the three weeks, and limit his losses on bad days.
He has decent support in the mountains, with Ivan Rovny and Jesus Hernandez, but as Alberto Contador did last year, will needs to perform without the help of his teammates once Sky, Movistar and Astana hit the after burners in the high mountains.
With Manuele Boaro, Matteo Tossatto and Pavel Brutt, Tinkoff have a strong team time trial squad, so look for them to be inside the top five on the opening stage.
Other than Majka, watch out for young Australian Jay McCarthy, who finished fourth at the Tour Down Under early in the season, and narrowly missed out on winning Stage 17 in 2014, finishing third behind Tim Wellens and Stefano Pirazzi.
I will be interested to see how Tinkoff use him.
Trek – Segafredo
2012 Giro champion Ryder Hesjedal starts his first Grand Tour for his new team Trek-Segafredo aiming to finish inside the top five, as he did in last year’s race. The 35-year-old Canadian is not getting any younger, so will need to make this race count, as he may not get many more opportunities to ride general classification.
Leading into the race, Hesjedal did not finish the recently run Tour of Romandie, Liege and Volta a Catalunya. His form is completely unknown.
If he does not perform, they do have two other options for success.
Fabian Cancellera returns to racing after a torrid time in his last classics run, after failing at Roubaix and missing the key selection at Flanders, but still finishing second. The long time trial on Stage 9 may suit him, however there are a few decent climbs involved on the course.
Trek bring sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo, who won the points classification at the Giro last year, but failed to win a stage, something that he has failed to do at Grand Tour level so far in his career. He will be supported by Boy Van Poppel in the finals.
Willier – Southeast
Another Italian Pro-Continental team that will be looking for a stage win and exposure on the world circuit.
Their main point of attack will be in the sprints, with classics specialist Flippo Pozzato and Manuel Beletti working in support of young charger Jakub Mareczko. This will be the 22-year-old Italian’s first shot at a Grand Tour, and he comes into the race in good form, after taking the final-stage sprint at the Tour of Turkey.
This goes with other wins at the Tour de San Luis, the Tour of Langkawi and Coppi e Bartali.
It will be interesting to see how he fares over the length of a Grand Tour – if he even finishes.
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