After a career spanning 18 seasons, Italian veteran Damiano Caruso has confirmed that the 2026 season will be his last.
The Bahrain Victorious rider is currently competing in his ninth and final Giro d’Italia and hopes to finally bow out with one final appearance at the Tour de France later this summer.
Now 38, the rider from Sicily has been one of Italy’s most consistent Grand Tour performers over the last decade. His best result came at the 2021 Giro d’Italia, where he finished 2nd overall behind Egan Bernal (Netcompany-Ineos) and won the final mountain stage on Alpe Motta.
Reports had circulated that Caruso may continue into 2027, with rumours of a bet lodged with Colombian general classification rider Santiago Buitrago that Caruso would add another year to his career if Buitrago finished on the final podium of the 2026 Giro. However, Buitrago failed to finish the second stage of the race after being caught up in a large crash in Bulgaria.
“No, no chance at all,” Caruso responded after being asked by The Cycling Podcast if there was a possibility that he could continue to race next season.
“At one point, you have to say stop. It's always nice when you can decide the end of the career. This is for sure my last Giro d’Italia. Maybe I will ride also the Tour de France.
“What I can imagine is to retire at the Tour de France after the Champs-Elysées. It will be amazing,” Caruso added.
Bahrain Victorious will head to the Tour de France looking to support General Classification bids for fellow Italian Antonio Tiberi and young Frenchman Lenny Martinez.
Caruso began his career in 2009, racing for Italian team LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini. He went on to compete for Liquigas and BMC before joining Bahrain Victorious in 2019, enjoying his most successful seasons towards the back-end of his career.
Along with his stage win and second place overall at the 2021 Giro, Caruso also won a stage of the Vuelta a España in the same year, and he's finished in the top five of both the 2023 and 2025 Giros.
At the 2026 Giro, Caruso has been working as a domestique for current maglia rosaAfonso Eulálio, who claimed pink from a successful breakaway on stage 5. Caruso himself lies in 16th overall after 12 stages.
The team has had an excellent race so far, claiming a stage win through rouleur Alec Segaert on stage 12 after he foiled the sprint teams with a canny late attack.
Caruso is by far the most experienced rider on the team and is providing steady guidance to the young Portuguese rider Eulalio ahead of the Giro’s most difficult mountain stages to come.
With a lead of just 33 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), Caruso expects Eulalio to lose the pink jersey on a difficult day in the Valle d’Aosta region on Saturday.
“It's a nice feeling, especially for me,” Caruso said of the mood in the Bahrain Victorious camp. “In this moment, in the team we have a special aura, because for him and for everybody it's something new.
“We just think to do the right thing at the right moment and try not to put too much stress on us and live the dream day by day.”
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Dan is a freelance cycling journalist who has written for Cyclingnews since 2023 alongside other work with Cycling Weekly, Rouleur and Escape Collective. Dan focuses much of his work on professional cycling beyond its traditional European heartlands and writes a regular Substack called Global Peloton.
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