Giro d'Italia 2023 - The comprehensive team-by-team guide
A full rundown of all the teams, their leaders, and riders to watch at this year's Corsa Rosa
Classics season is over and done with for another year and with the conclusion of the spring comes a return to Grand Tour racing at the 2023 Giro d'Italia. La Corsa Rosa is just a week away and the 22 teams, 176 riders, and countless staff members will be fine-tuning their preparation ahead of the Grande Partenza in Abruzzo.
All 18 WorldTour teams, plus four wildcard invitees, will head to the start in Fossacesia Marina next Saturday full of hope for the three weeks of racing that lies on the road to Rome.
Four jerseys – the maglia rosa, bianca, ciclamino, and azzurro – will be up for grabs over the 21 stages, along with stage wins, a host of minor prizes, and, of course, the Trofeo Senza Fine.
Only a few teams will harbour realistic hopes of overall glory, the likes of Soudal-QuickStep, Jumbo-Visma, and Ineos Grenadiers among them. Others, such as Italian ProTeams Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Eolo-Kometa, and Corratec-Selle Italia will be over the moon with a stage win or content with the breakaway prize.
Full team rosters for the Giro will be announced as the race draws near, but we already have a good idea of the major names who will be competing on the roads of Italy this May. As such, we've combed through the teams of the Giro to summarise their hopes, dreams and chances of fulfilling them.
Rest assured; we'll update this page as squad news rolls in through the week, so you know there's no other place for the comprehensive team guide of the 2023 Giro d'Italia. Read on for all you need to know.
Giro d'Italia teams
Soudal-QuickStep
- Team leader: Remco Evenepoel
- Objective: Overall victory
- Riders to watch: Ilan Van Wilder, Davide Ballerini
There's one goal for the Belgian squad at this year's Giro d'Italia: help deliver another Grand Tour win for Remco Evenepoel following last season's Vuelta a España triumph.
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The Belgian's talent has meant a recalibration of the Soudal-QuickStep team in recent seasons, stocking up on climbers to support the 23-year-old star at the Grand Tours, races where sprints and stage hunting had long been the order of the day.
Evenepoel will be supported by several riders who have spent much of the spring alongside him at training camps on Mount Teide. Climbers Ilan Van Wilder and Mattia Cattaneo will be key in the mountains, while Louis Vervaeke was another in Teide who formed part of the successful Vuelta squad.
New signing Jan Hirt – who joined from Intermarché-Circus-Wanty after finishing sixth at the Giro last year – is another very strong climber who should be key, while Mattia Cattaneo and Josef Cerny will be valued domestiques. Davide Ballerini is on hand to mix it up in the bunch sprints, meanwhile.
Fausto Masnada is a surprise omission from the squad, the Italian climber having trained alongside Evenepoel and the core Giro squad on Teide in recent months. Pieter Serry instead completes the team.
Evenepoel himself looks in great form, adding another Liège-Bastogne-Liège title to his palmarès with another unimpeachable long-range solo attack. His sole outing against main rival Primož Roglič, at last month's Volta a Catalunya, brought a second place to the Slovenian but last autumn he did have the comprehensive beating of the Slovenian through two weeks of the Vuelta.
Jumbo-Visma
- Team leader: Primož Roglič
- Objective: Overall victory
- Riders to watch: Sepp Kuss, Tobias Foss
Like Soudal-QuickStep, Jumbo-Visma are all-in for one top-tier favourite for the maglia rosa. Primož Roglič returns to the race where he made his breakthrough seven years ago in a bid to improve on the podium spot he scored on his crash-hit last appearance in 2019.
The Giro d'Italia and Tour de France aside, Roglič has won almost everything there is to win at the top level of stage racing, and he'll be backed up by arguably the strongest team in the race as he bids to add to his three Grand Tour titles at the Vuelta a España.
The 33-year-old has only taken part in two races this season, but he has a 100% record having triumphed at Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta a Catalunya and beating numerous Giro rivals along the way – Evenepoel, Almeida, Geoghegan Hart, Landa, Carthy, Ciccone, and Vlasov included.
He's in form, then, and, depending on your point of view, looks to rank with Evenepoel at 1a or 1b in the pre-race power ranking.
He'll miss new Jumbo signing Wilco Kelderman for the race, the Dutchman unfit after a crash at Tirreno and replaced by the squad's premier climbing lieutenant Sepp Kuss. The American has been a key figure in all three of Roglič's Vuelta win as well as Jonas Vingegaard's Tour triumph last year and should once again rise to the fore in the Alps and Dolomites.
Koen Bouwman is on hand to provide further climbing support along with German youngster Michael Hessmann. Rouleur Edoardo Affini is on hand to provide support on the flat and in the hills.
World time trial champion Tobias Foss, who was ninth at this race two years ago, is a late scratch from the start list along with Robert Gesink after the pair caught COVID-19. Time triallists Rohan Dennis and Jos Van Emden get the call-up in their place, though the latter was replaced by Sam Oomen on Thursday after he too caught the virus.
That wasn't the end of Jumbo-Visma's preparation woes, though. On Friday, a day before the Grande Partenza, Jan Tratnik injured his knee in a training crash. British climber Thomas Gloag was called up to make his Grand Tour debut just months after turning pro.
Ineos Grenadiers
- Team leaders: Geraint Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart
- Objective: Overall victory
- Riders to watch: Filippo Ganna, Thymen Arensman
While the impending battle between Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič has dominated the headlines ahead of this year's Giro d'Italia, Ineos Grenadiers and their packed squad have lurked in the background.
The reasoning for that quietness is likely in part because the team's presumptive leader, Geraint Thomas, has made few waves in 2023, with a mitigating factor in the form of a repeat illness. Three stage races down have brought 88th, 45th, and 15th places. It hardly screams 'Giro winner' but then again, the 36-year-old has done this all before and showed he can still compete with the best of them at last summer's Tour de France.
The Welshman hasn't dominated the conversation or the results sheets, but he's a Grand Tour contender until he's not.
Alongside him lines up a resurgent Tao Geoghegan Hart, coming back from a couple of lean years after his surprise 2020 Giro victory with an impressive spring. Third at Tirreno-Adriatico a month ago signalled that he was ready for the Giro, while an overall win – plus two stages – at the Tour of the Alps ahead of the likes of Hugh Carthy and Jack Haig signalled he's ready to contend.
Pavel Sivakov and Thymen Arensman, two men who could lead a team in their own right, are on hand to provide backup, making Ineos perhaps the deepest squad at the Giro.
Home hero Filippo Ganna is also racing and is the automatic favourite to add to his pink jersey collection in the opening time trial. As well as contending for the win there and on stage 9, the Piemontese will be ready to put in the hard yards on the flat and in the hills, too.
Veterans Salvatore Puccio and Ben Swift will be leading domestique duty in the squad alongside puncheur Laurens De Plus.
AG2R Citroën
- Team leader: Aurélien Paret-Peintre
- Objective: Stage wins, GC top 15
- Riders to watch: Andrea Vendrame, Felix Gall
The French team's bigger stars – such as Ben O'Connor, Greg Van Avermaet, Oliver Naesen, and Benoît Cosnefroy – are not in action at the Giro, so AG2R go into the race with mixed and muted ambitions.
The GC challenge looks set to come from Aurélien Paret-Peintre, a consistent all-rounder who was 16th at the 2020 Giro and 15th at the 2021 Tour de France. They also have Austrian climber Felix Gall, who impressed at Tour of the Alps but is making only his second Grand Tour appearance.
Stage wins, then, look more like the name of the game, and the sole Italian rider on the roster of the French squad will be key in that regard. Andrea Vendrame has won at the Giro in the past, having claimed a breakaway stage win in Bagno di Romagna two years ago.
The 28-year-old was in the breakaway twice at the recent Tour of the Alps and has some nice results on his 2023 palmarès: fifth at the Clàsica Valenciana, third at the Muscat Classic, second at Trofeo Laigueglia. With a fast finish and an ability to climb, he would be an outsider at adding to his 2021 stage win.
Elsewhere, Larry Warbasse, Mickaël Cherel, Paul Lapeira, Valentin Paret-Peintre, and Nicolas Prodhomme will be joining the line-up. It's not the strongest team at the race, but AG2R have had success at the Giro before, so they can't be written off.
Alpecin-Deceuninck
- Team leader: Kaden Groves
- Objective: Stage wins, points jersey
- Riders to watch: Stefano Oldani
There'll be no repeat of the 2022 Giro d'Italia for Alpecin-Deceuninck, with Mathieu van der Poel taking a well-deserved break after the spring Classics rather than revisit the race.
Last year, the team's superstar won the opener in Budapest, wore pink for three days, and then hit the breakaways for five more stages as teammates Stefano Oldani and Dries De Bondt scored a couple of stage wins in the race's second half.
It was a stunningly successful three weeks for the Dutch squad, though the chances of another spell in pink looks less likely given the opening time trial this May. The team will be well in contention for wins, though, with sprinter Kaden Groves leading the way in his second Grand Tour.
The Australian broke through last year with Jayco, winning stages at the Volta a Catalunya and Tour of Turkey before winning a mid-race sprint at the Vuelta a España. With his new team this season he's kicked on, taking two stages at Catalunya as well as the Volta Limburg Classic.
With a maximum of nine sprint stages possible at the Giro, the chances of adding to his collection look pretty good. He'll face rivals including Mark Cavendish, Mads Pedersen, Pascal Ackermann, Fernando Gaviria, and Michael Matthews in a strong sprint lineup this May.
Experienced lead-out and fellow new signing Ramon Sinkeldam is set to pilot Groves through the hectic bunch sprints along with Kristian Sbaragli, while Oldani and 2021 stage runner-up Oscar Riesebeek are also in the lineup. Nicola Conci, Alexander Kreiger, and Senne Leysen complete the squad.
All eyes, however, will be on 24-year-old rising star Groves.
Arkéa-Samsic
- Team leader: Warren Barguil
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Andrii Ponomar
Newly inducted into the WorldTour for 2023, French squad Arkéa-Samsic will find themselves on unfamiliar ground this May, having never raced the Giro d'Italia before.
Like the other French squads, the team's Grand Tour focus obviously lies with the Tour de France, and so it's no surprise that many of the team's most notable names will be focussing on July or taking a rest after the Classics.
Warren Barguil, the climber who ranks as perhaps the most famous name on the roster, will be racing in Italy, however. The 31-year-old is down for the Giro and Tour and is set to ride on after recovering from a bout of COVID-19 after Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
He'll be targeting the high mountains in a quest to add to his eight career victories – including stages at the Tour and Vuelta a España.
David Dekker, a new signing for 2023, represents the team's best chance of scoring a win in the sprint stages, even if the Dutchman is an outsider. Veteran rider Maxime Bouet comes along as the road captain, while the young remainder of the squad – Thibault Guernalec, Michael Ries, Maxime Bouet, Alan Riou, Clément Russo, and Alessandro Verre – are most likely to be seen in the breakaways.
Astana Qazaqstan
- Team leader: Mark Cavendish
- Objective: Stage wins, points jersey
- Riders to watch: Joe Dombrowski, Luis León Sánchez
The Kazakhstani squad have endured a nightmare of a start to the 2023 season, lying a lowly 24th in the UCI world ranking and having recorded only one victory before Alexey Lutsenko's final stage solo turnaround at the Giro di Sicilia.
The homegrown star won't be racing the Giro d'Italia, though, with the team instead all-in on veteran sprinter Mark Cavendish, he of 16 Giro stage wins and the 2013 maglia rosso (as the points jersey was coloured back then).
The British champion returns to the race with his team aching for glory and with, realistically, few places to seek it apart from the sprint stages. He hasn't enjoyed the best of starts to his time at Astana, with third places at the UAE Tour opener and at Scheldeprijs his best results so far.
There look to be eight possible sprint stages on the route this year, though some are hillier than others and the break will inevitably claim a couple, meaning there are plenty of chances to claim his first win in his new colours.
Astana signed Cees Bol to lead out Cavendish, though the Dutchman isn't racing the Giro and has only raced the UAE Tour alongside the sprinter. Instead, a swathe of the team's Italian contingent are racing, including Gianni Moscon, former U23 world champion Samuele Battistella, Cristian Scaroni, and Simone Velasco. The sole Kazakhstani representative is Vadim Pronskiy.
Spanish veteran Luis León Sánchez is, with Moscon, the team's most notable rider outside of Cavendish. The 39-year-old's powers may be on the wane but you can never rule him out for a stage win.
American climber Joe Dombrowski returns to the Giro for the eighth time. The 31-year-old, who kept a Giro diary for Cyclingnews last year, won the U23 race eight years ago and has a stage win – two years ago in Sestola – to his name. Look out for him in the high-mountain breaks.
Bahrain Victorious
- Team leader: Jack Haig
- Objective: GC podium, stage wins
- Riders to watch: Santiago Buitrago, Damiano Caruso
After picking up three podium places in the past four editions of the Giro d'Italia via Vincenzo Nibali, Damiano Caruso, and Mikel Landa, Bahrain Victorious turn this year to Australian GC hope Jack Haig.
The 29-year-old, who has taken two Critérium du Dauphiné top fives as well as a Vuelta a España podium in recent years, has targeted the Tour de France the past two summers only to crash out early on both occasions.
Now he's turned his attention to the Giro and heads up a powerful Bahrain squad featuring the veteran Caruso as well as 2022 Giro stage winner and Liège-Bastogne-Liège podium finisher Santiago Buitrago.
Another podium spot is likely to be the aim of the game for Haig, with two flat time trials likely to provide a decent time buffer for TT specialists Evenepoel and Roglič. That GC result and a stage win would spell an ideal Giro for the squad – Haig, the rising star Buitrago, Caruso, and Mäder could all be capable of the latter.
Andrea Pasqualon and Jonathan Milan are on board for the sprints, while Jasha Sütterlin and Edoardo Zambanini will take on domestique roles.
Yukiya Arashiro is a late callup for the Giro after Gino Mäder came down with COVID-19 on on Wednesday.
Bora-Hansgrohe
- Team leader: Aleksandr Vlasov
- Objective: GC podium
- Riders to watch: Lennard Kämna, Patrick Konrad
The German squad are another with podium ambitions having won their first Grand Tour title with Jai Hindley last time out. He'll be taking on the Tour de France for the first time this July, leaving the Giro d'Italia squad free to be led by Aleksandr Vlasov.
Fourth here in 2021, the Russian is aiming for a first career Grand Tour podium. Last season, he lit up spring with wins at the Volta a Valenciana and Tour de Romandie and podiums at Itzulia Basque Country and La Flèche Wallonne en route to fifth place at the Tour de France.
This spring he's been quieter with a fifth in Valencia and top 10 at Tirreno-Adriatico his top results heading to Italy. Still, the 27-year-old now has the experience and proven to contest at the top of the GC and he's got a strong team backing him up, too.
Vlasov will be the leader but watch out for Lennard Kämna, the dynamic German who is testing the GC waters for the first time in his career and who comes into the Giro in good form having won a stage and finished sixth at the Tour of the Alps.
Patrick Konrad will be a key mountain domestique, while Bob Jungels is a high-quality all-rounder who can provide support or hunt stages. The squad is rounded out by Giovanni Aleotti, Cesare Benedetti, Nico Denz, and Anton Palzer.
Cofidis
- Team leader: Simone Consonni
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Davide Cimolai
Another French team with eyes tilted towards their home race in July rather than the Italian Grand Tour, Cofidis nonetheless send a couple of notable names to the Giro d'Italia.
Italian sprinter Simone Consonni is set to take on his fifth Giro. The 28-year-old is part of Italy's successful track pursuit program alongside Filippo Ganna but hasn't yet hit upon a big win on the road.
The opening years of his career saw him performing lead-out duty at UAE, though he's had the freedom to sprint for himself since moving to Cofidis in 2020. Last year he racked up a fistful of top-10 placings but isn't a top favourite for the sprints.
Fellow Italian Davide Cimolai picked up a couple of second places at the Giro two years ago, though not a whole lot about the versatile sprinter's spring suggests he'll do the same again this time.
Two years ago, Victor Lafay won Cofidis' most recent Giro stage win and only the third of their long existence, though the puncheur isn't racing this time despite making the provisional lineup.
Climber Jonathan Lastra rounds out the team along with François Bidard, Thomas Champion, Rémy Rochas, Alexandre Delettre, and Hugo Toumire, though it's hard to imagine the men in red having a big impact on the race.
EF Education-EasyPost
- Team leader: Hugh Carthy
- Objective: GC top five, stage wins
- Riders to watch: Ben Healy, Magnus Cort, Rigoberto Urán, Alexander Cepeda
The pink-clad American squad are once again soon to switch up their jersey for the Giro d'Italia in order to avoid a clash with the famous maglia rosa, but they'll be hoping to get more out of the race than headlines for their garish kit.
British GC man Hugh Carthy heads up the team once again. In 2020 he burst onto the scene with an overall podium and Angliru stage win at the Vuelta, though he hasn't quite hit those heights since then, with eighth and ninth places his final results at the last two Giros.
Recent form is good, though, with eighth at Tirreno-Adriatico followed up by second place at the Tour of the Alps. A return to a Grand Tour podium isn't impossible but taking aim at a top five might be more realistic given the flat time trial kilometres in the race.
He'll be backed up by veteran GC campaigner Rigoberto Urán, who took a top 10 at last year's Vuelta and will bring valuable mountain support as he hits his twilight years.
As interesting – or perhaps more so – as any GC bid, though, will be the presence of Magnus Cort and Ben Healy. Cort is a reliable results-getter with two wins to his name already this season. He'll be searching for a stage win to complete his Grand Tour set.
22-year-old Healy has flown this spring and especially in the Ardennes, with second at Amstel Gold Race and fourth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The second-year pro makes his Grand Tour debut so miracles shouldn't be expected, but a stage win looks very plausible.
Alberto Bettiol is the team's sole Italian representative. He took a breakaway victory in Stradella two years ago, though hasn't looked in top form since the Tour Down Under. Jonathan Caicedo is another Giro stage winner on the team, having burst onto the scene with a stage win at Mount Etna in 2020.
Talented youngster Alexander Cepeda could be in for a breakthrough race, the 24-year-old in good form after finishing fourth at the Tour of the Alps. Giro debutant and South African time trial champion Stefan De Bod rounds out one of the most international teams in the peloton – seven different riders with eight different nationalities.
Eolo-Kometa
- Team leader: Lorenzo Fortunato
- Objective: Stage wins, minor classifications
- Riders to watch: Vincenzo Albanese
Eolo-Kometa are the most recent Italian wildcard team to score a stage victory at the Giro d'Italia, with climber Lorenzo Fortunato soaring to a dramatic breakaway win atop the Zoncolan two years ago.
The win was a career maker for the man from Bologna, who went on to win the Adriatica Ionica Race a month later. Last year he made a couple of breaks and finished a strong 15th overall, and the 26-year-old looks the man most likely to get a result for the team this May.
He's enjoyed a solid spring, picking up six top-10 placings across O Gran Camiño and the Tour of the Alps, including fifth overall at the latter. A top 10 – it would be the first for an Italian ProTeam since Domenico Pozzovivo's eighth place in 2012 – isn't totally out of the question, though it would be a long shot given the strength of field at the race.
He will lead the charge for another Eolo-Kometa stage win, though, with breakaways the target for the team. Last year, their riders took part in 13 breaks throughout the race, while new addition Mattia Bais racked up 617km across five breakaways to win the breakaway prize for Androni last year.
Look out for much more of that, from Bais and his younger brother Davide, as well as the likes of Mirco Maestri and Giro di Sicilia podium finisher Vincenzo Albanese. Elsewhere, 38-year-old Francesco Gavazzi rides his eighth and final Giro ahead of his impending retirement. Erik Fetter and Diego Sevilla round out the team.
Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè
- Team leader: Filippo Fiorelli
- Objective: Stage wins, minor classifications
- Riders to watch: Alessandro Tonelli
The Italian ProTeam have a long, long history at the Giro d'Italia, having been invited to every edition – 2009 aside – stretching back to the 1990s. The long-running team have won 21 stages at the race, going all the way back to Patrizio Gambirasio's victory at Borgo Valsugana in 1988.
The mid-2000s saw them rack up sprint and mountain wins via Max Richeze and Emanuele Sella, while Domenico Pozzovivo also scored several top 10 placings while at the squad.
In recent seasons, the men in green – or purple for the past three seasons – have been all about the breakaways and haven't tasted victory at the Giro since Giulio Ciccone's triumph at Sestola in 2016.
This time around, a stage win would be a dream result for Bardiani, though with teams at the top of the WorldTour getting richer and stronger every year, the prospect is slimmer than ever for the wildcard teams with only one win between them in the past three editions.
The likes of Samuele Zoccarato, Davide Gabburo, Filippo Fiorelli, Luca Covili and climber Alessandro Tonelli will be familiar names from the breakaway at races such as Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo. A trio of first- and second-year pros in Filippo Magli, Martin Marcellusi, and African champion, the young Eritrean Henok Mulubrhan, round out the lineup.
A large helping of luck would be needed to deliver the team's first stage win in seven years, while minor classifications such as the intermediate sprint, breakaway, and combativity prizes will also be on the radar.
Groupama-FDJ
- Team leader: Thibaut Pinot
- Objective: Top 10, stage wins, pink jersey
- Riders to watch: Stefan Küng, Jake Stewart
Thibaut Pinot will wave goodbye to the Giro d'Italia this year as he prepares to take on the race for the last time ahead of his retirement at the season's end. He's only raced the Grand Tour twice before, taking fourth back in 2017 and brutally falling off the podium after falling ill on the penultimate day a year later.
He'll hope for a better memory this May, even if he's not likely to hit the heights of his prime, GC-contending years. Pinot will be looking for stage wins at the Giro to go with his triumph in Asiago six years ago.
He's hit form at the right time, in any case. Mid-April saw him take fifth, second, and second at a trio of back-to-back-to-back French one-dayers and, given his pedigree, there's every chance he can bow out with a breakaway victory in the mountains.
Pinot aside, Groupama-FDJ will be looking to Stefan Küng for a big result. The Swiss time trial specialist is among the favourites for the first maglia rosa of the race in the 18.4km TT to Ortona.
Küng was in solid form through Classics season, though perhaps surprisingly has never won a Grand Tour time trial, his best results coming with second places at the 2017 and 2021 Tours de France. The tests in Ortona and, eight days later in Cesena, give him two tilts at breaking that duck, though he'll have to beat a formidable lineup of foes including Evenepoel, Roglič, Foss, Thomas, and Ganna to do so.
Elsewhere, Jake Stewart makes his Giro debut. The young Briton figures to be a bunch sprint outsider. Rudy Molard is the road captain, while Fabien Lienhard, Lars van den Berg, Bruno Armirail, and neo-pro Reuben Thompson also ride.
Intermarché-Circus-Wanty
- Team leader: Lorenzo Rota
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Taco van der Hoorn, Simone Petilli
The Belgian squad are set to look very different to the team which took the start of the Giro d'Italia in Hungary last May. Stage 10 winner Biniam Girmay is focussing on the Tour de France, while the evergreen eighth-place finisher Domenico Pozzovivo left the team over the winter, eventually landing at Israel-Premier Tech.
Italian trio Niccolò Bonifazio, Simone Petilli, Lorenzo Rota head up the Intermarché selection. Bonifazio, a new addition for 2023, recently won his first race for the team, sprinting to a stage win at the Giro di Sicilia.
Petilli looks in good shape, too, finishing eighth overall at the race. Rota, meanwhile, narrowly missed out on a Giro breakaway stage win to Stefano Oldani in Genoa last year.
Belgian youngsters Laurenz Rex, Arne Marit, and Laurens Huys will likely be given free reign to infiltrate breakaways and seek stage wins, with Sven Erik Bystrøm sure to have similar freedoms on a very equal and egalitarian squad.
Veteran racer Rein Taaramäe, whose breakaway stage win at Sant Anna di Vinadio in 2016 was somewhat overshadowed by Vincenzo Nibali's memorable GC comeback, completes the team.
The star power and big names may be lacking, but if we've learned anything from Intermarché-Circus-Wanty in recent seasons, it's that they outperform expectations.
Israel-Premier Tech
- Team leader: Domenico Pozzovivo
- Objective: GC top 10, stage wins
- Riders to watch: Simon Clarke, Giacomo Nizzolo
It took three months for Domenico Pozzovivo to find a team for the 2023 season, a ridiculous situation given that the 30-year-old recorded top 10s at the Giro d'Italia and Tour de Suisse last season.
Still, Intermarché couldn't find the cash to re-sign him, so Israel-Premier Tech eventually swooped in to bring him on board. Despite a very late start to the season, 'the flea from Policoro' has already shown some form this spring, taking sixth overall at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali.
The flyweight climber, who turned 40 in November, is a reliable Giro GC performer, with seven top 10s to his name in addition to a stage win all the way back in 2012. The years are advancing, and he fights through setback after setback – career-threatening car strikes, team collapses, contract searches – but Pozzovivo will no doubt be back battling for a place of honour in late May.
Details of who will accompany him at the Giro are yet to be revealed, but fellow veteran Simon Clarke could return to the race after three years away to complete the set of Grand Tour stage wins. Mads Würtz Schmidt is another breakaway candidate.
Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo, who ended a painful run of 11 second places with a stage win two years ago, was expected to race, but wasn't named in the team's selection.
Promising young climber Matthew Riccitello makes his Giro debut, as do Marco Frigo, Sebastian Berwick and Derek Gee, while British climber Stephen Williams completes the squad.
Jayco-AlUla
- Team leader: Michael Matthews
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Alessandro De Marchi
In lieu of a GC contender with Simon Yates skipping the Giro d'Italia for the first time since 2017, Michael Matthews heads up the Jayco-AlUla selection for La Corsa Rosa.
The versatile sprinter has raced the Giro three times, winning two stages, two team time trials, and wearing the pink jersey for eight days in total.
A good return, then, and it could get better this year despite a disappointing spring campaign with a plethora of sprint stages – and some trickier ones which should dispense of the pure fastmen – on offer over the course of the three weeks.
He'll be joined in Italy by new signing Eddie Dunbar, who will race his first Grand Tour in four years and with a chance to ride for himself after leaving Ineos. Italian champion Filippo Zana, who joined from Bardiani over the winter, is also set to ride.
Breakaway specialist Alessandro De Marchi will be aiming for a first career stage win, while Campbell Stewart is the team's only debutant. 2017 opening stage winner Lukas Pöstlberger is also in the squad along with Michael Hepburn and Callum Scotson.
Movistar
- Team leader: Fernando Gaviria
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Einer Rubio, Carlos Verona
Miguel Indurain, Nairo Quintana, and Richard Carapaz have delivered four Giro d'Italia wins for Movistar over the decades, but it would be a miraculous result if the 2023 squad were to replicate those results this May.
UAE Tour stage winner Einer Rubio, Tour of Britain champion Oscar Rodríguez, American Will Barta and Carlos Verona make up a quartet of neat stage hunters who could come up with a result from a mountain breakaway.
However, sprinter Fernando Gaviria is Movistar's main man at the Giro. It's something a new dawn for the GC-focused team – first Matteo Jorgenson and Oier Lakzano represent them at the pointy end of the cobbled Classics, now they head to a Grand Tour with a sprinter leading the squad.
Gaviria, who moved on from UAE Team Emirates over the winter, has already taken his first win in his new dark blue colours, beating Peter Sagan and Filippo Ganna on an uphill sprint at the Vuelta a San Juan.
He hasn't yet done it against a field of top competition, though, recording a couple of podiums at the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this spring. Last May, Mark Cavendish, Arnaud Démare, and Alberto Dainese prevented him from adding to his five career Giro stage wins. Can his new surroundings help him prevail this time around?
Max Kanter is on hand to provide Gaviria's lead-out, while Albert Torres and veteran José Joaquín Rojas – starting his 21st Grand tour – complete the squad.
Team Corratec-Selle Italia
- Team leader: Valerio Conti
- Objective: Stage wins, minor classifications
- Riders to watch: Anyone who gets in the break
Following Androni Giocattoli's sponsor troubles and subsequent relocation to the Colombian Continental ranks, veteran team boss and Giro staple Gianni Savio will be missing from the race for the first time since 2017.
Don't worry, though, because another Italian team has popped up to fill the void. Along with Eolo-Kometa and Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Team Corratec-Selle Italia are the only other Italian second-division squad left and so take up the third of four wildcard spots for the race.
The squad has stepped up from the Continental ranks for 2023, though haven't yet scored a win this season, something that doesn't look overly likely to change at their Giro debut.
The men in claret are arguably the weakest team taking the start of the race, with a stage win looking set to be the absolute top limit of their ambitions. Valerio Conti, formerly of UAE Team Emirates, a veteran of seven Giros and 2016 Vuelta a España stage winner, is set to be team leader and looks the man most likely to get a result.
Former Jayco rider Alexander Konychev is among Corratec's other notable riders, while former Trek man Charlie Quarterman will be familiar to British fans. Karel Vacek, Nicolas Dalla Valle, Stefano Gandin, Alessandro Iacchi, and Veljko Stojnić round out the selection.
As with the other Italian ProTeams, expect to see the team going clear in plenty of breakaways and battling over those minor prizes.
Team DSM
- Team leader: Andreas Leknessund
- Objective: GC top 15, stage wins
- Riders to watch: Alberto Dainese
With a roster packed with young riders, it's no surprise that Team DSM are set to go with a young squad for this year's Giro d'Italia. The highly rated 23-year-old Andreas Leknessund will be leading the Dutch squad this May after making his Grand Tour debut at last year's Tour de France.
The Norwegian made a breakthrough in 2022 with a 170km breakaway solo win at the Tour de Suisse and victory on home ground at the Arctic Race of Norway. Now the question is: can he step it up another level to lead a team at a three-week race.
With DSM leader and GC veteran Romain Bardet focussing on the Tour this summer, it appears that the Giro will be a chance for the more young and unproven riders on the roster to get out in breaks, fight for wins, and take their own chances. Look out for the likes of Harm Vanhoucke, Jonas Iversby Hvideberg, and
Niklas Märkl to be doing just that.
Up-and-coming sprinter Alberto Dainese will be contesting the bunch finishes. After last year's breakthrough stage win in Reggio Emilia, he's well in the frame for another one.
Fellow sprinter and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race winner Marius Mayrhofer makes his Grand Tour debut, while Florian Stork and Martijn Tusveld are also riding.
Trek-Segafredo
- Team leader: Mads Pedersen
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Bauke Mollema
Two years ago, Giulio Ciccone was on course for a career-best Giro d'Italia result and a possible final-week podium battle before a multi-rider crash on stage 17 to Sega di Ala saw him injured and out of the race painfully late.
Last year he bounced back to claim his third Giro career stage victory on stage 15 in the Valle d'Aosta, but this time around there's more bad luck before the race has even kicked off. Ciccone will miss out on the race and a start in his home region of Abruzzo after testing positive for COVID-19 last week.
Ciccone had been flying this spring with stage wins at the Volta a Valenciana and Volta a Catalunya in addition to fifth at Tirreno-Adriatico and La Flèche Wallonne.
Trek will look to stage wins from former world champion Mads Pedersen in Ciccone's absence. The Dane can count stage wins at the two other Grand Tours on his palmarès and enjoyed a great spring campaign.
Talented young Eritrean climber Natnael Tesfatsion lines up for his third Giro start and his first for Trek after moving from Androni, while his countryman Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier is called up to replace Ciccone.
Bauke Mollema, the wily veteran who can count Il Lombardia among his palmarès, is down to start and will be hunting stages. Daan Hoole, Alex Kirsch, Toms Skujins, and Otto Vergaerde round out the lineup.
UAE Team Emirates
- Team leader: João Almeida
- Objective: GC podium
- Riders to watch: Pascal Ackermann, Jay Vine
Portuguese rider João Almeida made his name at the Giro d'Italia, racing to fourth overall at the pandemic-delayed edition in 2020 at the end of his neo-pro season. In two return visits to the race, he has yet to best that initial effort, finishing sixth in 2021 and then leaving last year's race in the midst of a podium battle four days from the end with COVID-19.
The 24-year-old returns this year with unfinished business, then, and he looks to line up as potentially third favourite following a series of impressive rides this spring. At Tirreno-Adriatico he finished second, bested only by Primož Roglič, while at the Volta a Catalunya he was clearly the best of the rest behind the Slovenian winner and Remco Evenepoel.
Those results, and his Grand Tour history, suggest that he might not yet be expected to beat either man this May. But few others among the GC contenders can match his time trial ability, and he can climb with the best of them on his day. It wouldn't be a surprise at all to see Almeida score that first Grand Tour podium at this year's Giro.
He'll receive backup from a formidable squad, including the ascendant Jay Vine, American all-rounder Brandon McNulty and reliable Italian pairing Davide Formolo and Alessandro Covi.
Diego Ulissi will also be on hand while no doubt being given some freedom to pursue an absurd ninth career Giro stage win, and Pascal Ackermann – twice a stage winner in 2019 – is the team's sprint option with Ryan Gibbons set to lead out.
Giro d'Italia start list
Data powered by First Cycling
Dani Ostanek is Senior News Writer at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor, later being hired full-time. Her favourite races include Strade Bianche, the Tour de France Femmes, Paris-Roubaix, and Tro-Bro Léon.
