Last-minute rider substitutions at Grand Tours are a time-honoured part of the sport, but in the case of Josh Giddings, the 2026 Giro d'Italia, and the chain of cause-and-effect that has led the 22-year-old Briton to the startline in Nessebar, Bulgaria, there are surely very few precedents indeed.
Originally set to race next in the Classique Dunkerque and Four Days of Dunkerque in the second half of May, on Tuesday Giddings received an urgent phone call from his Lotto-Intermarché team, explaining that several of their riders due to race the Giro had fallen ill.
A possible outbreak of campylobacter – a type of bacteria responsible for gastrointestinal infections – sparked from racing over cow manure on the course of the Famenne Ardenne Classic last weekend, is widely seen as the prime suspect.
"Then, as I already knew two days ago, in the evening I already got in contact about the flights just in case it was going to happen that I'd have to come to the Giro. Then I just packed my suitcase as soon as I had the first phone call – I wanted to be prepared as a 'just in case.'
Once he had got over the stress of packing – "like, logistically, what do I need to take?'" – for 3,468 kilometres of racing in Bulgaria and Italy, he ended up being "really excited" to take part in his first Grand Tour. He brought his own training bike from home and then another teammate brought his race bike over from Belgium, so that was one potential major headache less, too.
' I just have to be in the right mindset'
There's no getting away from the sense of uncharted waters that await Giddings, though. For one thing, his longest previous race to the Giro has been a maximum of eight stages, at events like the Tour of Britain, Tour of Turkey and in the Tour de l'Avenir a few years back. This time, he's heading for a 23-day, 21 stage challenge - a very different kettle of fish.
"On a personal level, I'm excited, I didn't prepare specifically for this race, but when I had the phone call to come, I knew straight away I couldn't change the physical part, so there was no point worrying about that, I just had to be in the right mindset.
"The team have not specifically said yet so far what my sort of role is, but I think we'll find that out in the pre-race meeting probably tonight or tomorrow morning."
As for his ill teammates, those affected seems to be getting better, Giddings said, with the riders able to do a training ride on Thursday. "They seem ok, after what I heard was a not a nice illness to have, but they seem to be coming round ok."
By another unusual set of circumstances, Giddings is far from being the only Briton to find himself making a Grand Tour debut as a last-minute substitution in recent years. In 2023, Thomas Gloag, now with Pinarello-Q36.5, replaced Jan Tratnik at Jumbo-Visma after the Slovenian veteran was injured in a training crash and in 2025 at the Vuelta a España, Finlay Pickering (Jayco-AlUla) started his first Grand Tour at Bahrain Victorious after Damiano Caruso had a domestic accident, slipping on the floor of his house and fracturing his hand.
But whatever the reasons that have made him the next British rider to have to step up to the plate at the last minute, Giddings sees it as too good an opportunity to miss.
"At the end of the day, it could be my first Grand Tour finish, which for me is a big step in my career, so I'm looking forward to it," he said.
"As long as I'm mentally prepared and in the right mindset, I'm looking forward to racing and all's going to be well for me.
"I think I'll find out probably tomorrow or over the next few days how I'm going, but I did Paris -Roubaix, had a short holiday break and then I was training for a couple of weeks at home, so I felt quite OK on the bike.
"It's hard to know without racing, but the sort of rides and training I did - I had some good days and some quite OK days. So we'll find out probably how I'm going in the next week."
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