Reviewing every team in the Giro d'Italia 2026 – Who flew and who flopped?

As the dust settles on the men's Giro d'Italia, attention is already turning towards the next races of the season, but before we move on entirely, we at Cyclingnews wanted to take a final look at how every team performed.

A total of 23 teams started the race in Bulgaria nearly four weeks ago now, and some came away with wins, jerseys and memories, whilst some came away with, well, basically nothing at all.

For some, just being in a few breaks and winning some intermediates would have met their pre-race goals, but for others, even a win or two didn't quite satisfy what they wanted to achieve in this race.

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Ahead of the next goals and the Tour de France, we took a closer look at every team in the Giro, what they achieved, what they need to work on for next time, and one word that sums up each team's race.

We've ordered the teams based on the final teams classification, which is based on the combined GC time of a team's best three finishers, which gives us some insight into how teams did, but doesn't always tell the whole story.

Here are our 23 reviews and report cards for this year's Giro.

Visma-Lease a Bike

• One-word review: Consummate
• Achievements: Overall title plus six stage wins
• Room to improve: Just missed out on the white jersey for Piganzoli but you have to scratch extremely hard to find any shortcoming with this team.

Visma-Lease a Bike won the Giro for a second year in a row and the third time in four years, with Jonas Vingegaard collecting his fourth Grand Tour title to complete the three-week trilogy. Both rider and team strengthened their positions in the history books with a consummate display that almost made a mockery of the old adages about the Giro’s inherent chaos.

The team lost Wilco Kelderman early on, but you wouldn’t know it, and in fact, that allowed Davide Piganzoli to break through as the leading mountain domestique and a revelation of the race. The 23-year-old finished eighth and nearly snatched the white jersey from Afonso Eulálio. That would have been the cherry on the icing, but Visma still found room in the final week to engineer a stage victory for Sepp Kuss, himself completing the Grand Tour stage win trilogy.

Everything seemed to come so effortlessly to the team, who controlled the race when they needed and indeed wanted to, sat back at the right moments, and never even began to get dragged into sticky situations.

The same was true of Vingegaard, who looked like he never needed to get out of third gear, and that was the biggest success of this Giro for the team – winning it while essentially training for the Tour de France. Vingegaard won five stages, the team six, which would suggest a suffocating dominance, but this was a Giro raced with a deft touch, which is perhaps even more concerning for everyone else. (PF)

Netcompany Ineos

• One-word review: Perspective
• Achievements: Stage win with Filippo Ganna, 4th overall with Thymen Arensman
• Room to improve: The 37-second gap between Arensman and the podium was probably the line between success and disappointment at this Giro

This was a decent enough Giro for the British team, but it depends on which way you look at it, and them. Thymen Arensman finally found the consistency required to build a GC bid, Filippo Ganna won the time trial stage in overwhelming fashion, and Egan Bernal chimed in with a top 10 on GC and a humbly heartwarming display as a domestique for Arensman in his hours of need

It wasn’t a bad display, but for a team like Ineos, you wonder whether that’s enough, and that question was brought into even starker relief given this Giro was the first race of the Netcompany era, in which the slump of the past few years will supposedly make way for Tour de France glory once more. In that light, the team must be wondering where their next Grand Tour winner will come from. Bernal, for all that his comeback from a life-threatening crash has been admirable and extraordinary, may never find his way back to his old status.

Arensman showed progress but did slip off the podium, and the gap to the winner was a complete chasm. It feels like, with Ineos, the bar for success has been lowered in recent years, and while this Giro had plenty of positives, you sense that soon enough it won’t be good enough. (PF)

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe

• One-word review: Struggle
• Achievements: 3rd overall with Jai Hindley
• Room to improve: Giulio Pellizzari looked like he could be best of the rest but his GC bid went spectacularly up in flames

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Giro was a struggle, for the most part. Both their leaders were set back by illness, with a stomach virus seeing them lose time in the first week and unable to train on the second rest day. Hindley’s perseverance was the highlight, as the former winner of the race rallied, clawed his way back up the standings, and came good in the final week when he disposed of Thymen Arensman for the final spot on the podium.

Given that the top step was well out of reach, that represents a successful outcome for the rider and team. But when your other leader is saying he’s going to burn his race numbers, it’s not a 360-degree success.

Having placed sixth in both the Giro and Vuelta last year, Pellizzari’s early-season form – in which he won the Tour of the Alps and was third at Tirreno-Adriatico – suggested this could be his breakthrough as a Grand Tour contender, and many saw him as the closest challenger to Vingegaard. But he never found his feet, losing 18 minutes on the first mountain stage of the final week and plummeting to 21st overall by the race’s end. (PF)

Tudor Pro Cycling

• One-word review: Encouraging
• Achievements: 7th and 11th overall through Michael Storer and Mathys Rondel
• Room to improve: More presence in sprints and breakaways could be expected from a team that’s not among the top GC squads

Fabian Cancellara’s second-division team continue to go from strength to strength, and they punched above their weight again at this Giro. Michael Storer now has his third Giro top-10 finish in a row, recording his best Grand Tour result of seventh overall. The Australian was consistent enough in the end, and he was adventurous in trying to improve his position in the final week.

He wasn’t the team’s only GC card, with 22-year-old Frenchman Mathys Rondel also impressing. Having shone early on, Rondel faded as the race went on and dropped out of the top 10. But this was his first-ever foray into three-week racing, and his performance bodes very well for the future. Luca Mozzato couldn’t do anything for Tudor in the sprints, and they didn’t feature heavily in breakaways, but the twin GC cards still represented a good Giro for the ever-improving squad. (PF)

Decathlon CMA CGM

• One-word review: Impressive
• Achievements: Second place overall with Felix Gall
• Room to improve: Tobias Lund Andersen fell flat in the sprints

Decathlon CMA CGM may well lose Felix Gall by next season,s but they delivered the Austrian climber to the first Grand Tour podium of his career, and the first under the team’s Decathlon ownership. Ben O’Connor was runner-up in the Vuelta when Decathlon was a mere sponsor in 2024, but otherwise, you have to go back to the days of Romain Bardet to find the last three-week podium for the French team.

A comically bad time trial aside, Gall finally found the consistency to mount a proper GC bid, and while he was a mile off Vingegaard, he was best of the rest every time the road went uphill. While Gall has grown into a GC contender, his team were prominent and willing to take charge, another sign of their growing stature within the sport.

The disappointing element to the team’s Giro was their sprinter Tobias Lund Andersen, who’d raised hopes with a storming start to the season but, after placing second on the opening day, never finished higher than seventh again. A stage win to go with the GC podium would have rounded Decathlon’s Giro off perfectly. (PF)

Pinarello-Q36.5

• One-word review: Bruising
• Achievements: Presence in several breakaways
• Room to improve: Winning situations were hard to come by but their riders were still largely out-powered in the breaks.

The team placed two riders inside the top 20 on GC, which might explain their relatively lofty position in the teams’ classification, but in reality, Pinarello-Q36.5 failed to have much of an impact on this Giro. David De La Cruz and Chris Harper toiled in the breakaways, but when five of the big mountain stages are won by the overall winner and another one by his teammate, there isn’t much you can do.

Fourth place was the best it got for the team, through Sjoerd Bax in the stage 10 time trial and Harper the following day. They weren’t helped by losing their sprinter, Matteo Moschetti, in the huge opening-day pile-up, and they finished the race with just four riders. (PF)

Bahrain Victorious

• One-word review: Feel-good
• Achievements: Stage win through Alec Segaert, 6th overall and white jersey for Afonso Eulálio
• Room to improve: The team may feel they should be challenging for podium places more consistently given their budget but as far as this Giro is concerned you can’t really complain

In Afonso Eulálio, Bahrain Victorious had one of the stars of this Giro, with the Portuguese rider providing that dose of breakthrough, underdog energy, all with a Cheshire Cat grin that grew wider as the race went on. Fans love an unlikely stint in pink, and Eulálio, after the glorious chaos of his stage 5 breakaway, treated us to a gutsy defence of the maglia rosa, pushing his boundaries far beyond where he or his team would have set them at the start of the race.

Once out of pink, he gamely defended his GC status, only slipping to sixth overall by the end and hanging onto the white jersey of best young rider. Bahrain put two riders in the top 10, with the wily old Damiano Caruso ninth in his final Giro. Elsewhere, Alec Segaert took one of the best stage wins with a canny last-gasp attack into Novi Ligure, underlining his status as one of the most adventurous and exciting solo finisseurs operating right now. (PF)

Lidl-Trek

• One-word review: Chaotic
• Achievements: 5th overall with Derek-Gee West, stage win through Jonathan Milan, KOM jersey through Giulio Ciccone
• Room to improve: More stage wins would have been expected, and the aim with new signing Gee-West would have been to move one place up from his 4th last year, not down

By the end of the Giro, things didn’t seem so bad for Lidl-Trek. Jonathan Milan won the final stage in Rome, where Giulio Ciccone wore the blue jersey as winner of the mountains classification, and new signing Derek Gee-West celebrated his second top-five Giro finish in as many years. But the story of the team’s Giro was one of frustration for the most part.

Milan was forced to see his previous sprint dominance replaced by Paul Magnier, Ciccone cut an exasperated figure as his breakaways failed to stick, and his time in the pink jersey only lasted one rainy day. The Italian’s rage-fuelled ride on stage 19 was as entertaining as anything else at this Giro, but it did raise doubts over team cohesion.

There had already been question marks over the decision to save Gee-West from having to pull to close the gap that eventually saw Ciccone’s pink jersey slip away in the opening week. And then on stage 19, Gee-West was in that break with Ciccone, who went off in search of the stage win while his leader could have stood to gain even more placings on GC. Ciccone argued that it benefited the team, but the move was obviously not calculated or agreed upon. A chaotic Giro, then, but one that was far from a failure. (PF)

Movistar

• One-word review: Embarrassing
• Achievements: Runner-up placings on stages for Enric Mas and Orluis Aular
• Room to improve: Consistency, quality, communication

Movistar are fairly high up the teams’ classification, but the Spanish team had a Giro to forget. In fact, the most memorable thing about it, beyond Einer Rubio’s robbing Giulio Ciccone of KOM points out of sheer spite, was the controversy surrounding Enric Mas and team boss Eusebio Unzué, who indicated his team leader was well below the level expected.

Unzué's comments were arguably blown out of proportion in the Spanish media, but openly questioning your leader and opening him up to questions on that topic is never the greatest look. It led to Juanpe Lopez inviting critics to spend 10 minutes trying to keep up with the pro peloton, a contribution that missed the point and added to a sense of tension and unease in the camp.

Mas did bring some of this on himself, openly stating he was ready to fight for the podium despite having a long injury lay-off over the winter. Had he kept more coy, we’d perhaps be judging Movistar’s Giro in a different light, but he quickly fell flat on GC and wasn’t able to deliver from the breakaway after that.

Rubio was a bright spark, choosing to chase breaks despite twice being top 10 in the previous two editions, but likewise couldn’t land a stage win or a classification win. And neither could sprinter Orluis Aular, runner-up on stage 4, save this Giro with a stage win. (PF)

Jayco-AlUla

• One-word review: Underwhelming
• Achievements: A handful of top 10s and 16th overall for O'Connor
• Room to improve: O'Connor needs better climbing support to survive the third week

Jayco AlUla had a really promising first two weeks of the Giro with Ben O'Connor riding well and firmly in the top 10, but his GC hopes faded away in the third week as he struggled to keep up with the pace, and he eventually finished 16th, a result that he would be the first to say was disappointing.

There was not much else to redeem the Australian team's race, with Pascal Ackermann not really impressing in the sprints and breakaways, and Andrea Vendrame dropping out before the race reached Italy. We also might have expected more from mountain biker Alan Hatherly, but he was really just getting around. A pretty underwhelming race for the Aussies. (MP)

Uno-X Mobility

• One-word review: Determined
• Achievements: One stage win and close on several other occasions
• Room to improve: Andreas Leknessund just needs to work out how to turn his breakaway prowess into a win

Uno-X Mobility came away from the Giro with one of the most memorable stage wins – Fredrik Dversnes' sprint-upsetting victory in Milan, which is obviously brilliant on their debut in Italy, but they are also probably coming away with a feeling that they could have achieved even more.

That's because Norwegian champion Andreas Leknessund was in no fewer than six breakaways and finished second on three of those occasions. Particularly in the final week, it looked like Leknessund was just inches away from winning a stage, but it never came. It was a great showing for the team, but everyone just wanted a tiny bit more. Johannes Kulset's 18th overall was a solid result for a team which is limited in GC capabilities. (MP)

Team Polti VisitMalta

• One-word review: Lucrative
• Achievements: Two runner-up spots on stages
• Room to improve: A stage win would be huge for this team

Polti VisitMalta came to the Giro as a Classic breakaway team, but they didn't just go in moves for the sake of it; they really made the most of their race, chasing down all the prizes possible. They didn't win a stage but won over €60,000 in prize money as Diego Pablo Sevilla won the breakaway prize, which is a pretty nice haul for a ProTeam.

They also finished second on two stages, including Giovanni Lonardi's highly impressive runner-up spot in Rome behind Jonathan Milan. Debutant Ludovico Crescioli also massively impressed in the mountains, which is an advert for the team's development programme as much as anything, and some really good signs for the team.

When you're Polti VisitMalta, it doesn't matter if you don't win a stage as long as you're leaving some kind of impression on the race and come away with some prizes, and that's exactly what they did. (MP)

XDS-Astana

• One-word review: Underrated
• Achievements: Three stage wins and a stint in the pink jersey
• Room to improve: Very little!

Whilst UAE made the headlines for their successful Giro, XDS Astana's race was probably underappreciated in terms of their success. The team had a fantastic start to the race with Thomas Silva's surprise stage win and pink jersey, and then they followed that up with two more stage wins for Davide Ballerini and Alberto Bettiol.

This is what Astana comes to races like this to do, and they're very good at hunting out those wins, but to take three in one race was extremely impressive. Losing Christian Scaroni was a shame for their GC hopes, and with him, they probably would have finished a lot higher up this ranking, but in general, the team had a really great race that probably wasn't celebrated enough. (MP)

UAE Team Emirates-XRG

• One-word review: Redemptive
• Achievements: Four stage wins and came close to winning the maglia ciclamino
• Room to improve: Apart from 'don't crash', there's not much UAE could have done better – they made the very best of their situation

UAE Team Emirates-XRG came to this race without last year's podium finisher, Isaac del Toro, and then had pretty much the worst start possible when all their climbers and possible GC riders crashed out in Bulgaria, so to turn it around to still win four stages and contend for a jersey was pretty incredible to see.

After losing Yates and co, the team could have faded away, but instead Jhonatan Narvaez stepped up to be the rider of the race, and Igor Arrieta grabbed possibly the most thrilling breakaway victory of the race.

As multiple Grand Tour stage winners, obviously, we would have expected more on that front before the race, but with the hand they were given, UAE delivered the best comeback of the Giro. (MP)

EF Education-EasyPost

• One-word review: Satisfying
• Achievements: Stage win for Valgren
• Room to improve: A healthy GC rider would have been good

With Richard Carapaz forced out of the race before it started, EF Education-EasyPost pivoted to stage hunting and delivered on that goal with a win for Michael Valgren, the culmination of the Dane's comeback from a horror crash in 2022, so I think their Giro was satisfying if not life-changing.

Jardi van der Lee and Markel Beloki were great in the breakaways even if they didn't grab a win like Valgren, and Madis Mikhels overdelivered in the sprints, so all in all it was a good Giro for EF despite having to adjust their ambitions. (MP)

NSN

• One-word review: Average
• Achievements: Top 10 on eight stages with Vernon and Strong consistent in sprints, Hirt 12th on GC
• Room to improve: More commitment to breakaways needed

NSN seemed to wage most of their Giro d'Italia chances on sprint opportunities for Ethan Vernon and Corbin Strong, and were rewarded with consistent but not earth-shattering results, mainly a lot of top 10s. That's great for points-scoring and shows their strength as a team, but they didn't really come close to actually winning a stage.

They could have had a better presence in breakaways, with Jan Hirt climbing well, but riders like Dion Smith and Nick Schultz were pretty invisible, apart from their contributions to the sprints. A pretty average race all in all, though they'll be pleased with their UCI points haul. (MP)

Soudal-QuickStep

• One-word review: One-note
• Achievements: Ciclamino jersey, three stage wins with Paul Magnier
• Room to improve: Expected more from Filippo Zana

Winning the point classification and three stages along the way, Soudal-QuickStep's Giro was undoubtedly a success, but that was really their only thread of success, with relatively little to offer on harder stages or the GC.

New signing Filippo Zana arguably underperformed, scrapping in the breaks to not much reward rather than looking anywhere near the 11th overall he took in 2024. Jasper Stuyven was the MVP with some incredible lead-outs. (MP)

Groupama-FDJ United

• One-word review: Invisible
• Achievements: Third for Penhoet in Rome, Cavagna third in TT
• Room to improve: If you don't have a GC rider or sprinter, at least have a proper go at the breakaways

I regularly forgot that Groupama-FDJ United were in this race; that was how little they did. They came to the race without a proper printer or GC rider, naturally saving the few resources they do have for the Tour de France, but they seemed to just sit back entirely, not making a particular effort to go in breakaways or chase sub-classifications.

Cavagna's TT was impressive, and Penhoet had a couple of good sprints, but their most memorable rider was probably Josh Kench, who did give it a good go in his first Grand Tour. But overall, the team may as well not have been there. (MP)

Lotto-Intermarché

• One-word review: Decimated
• Achievements: Runner-up spot on stage 7 for Aerts, Van Eetvelt was riding well before his abandon
• Room to improve: Don't inhale so much cow manure right before the race next time

Lotto Intermarché's Giro was pretty cursed before it even started, with riders getting sick before they travelled to Bulgaria, and Josh Giddings was drafted in for a surprise debut after one rider was too sick to start. The impact of sickness saw sprint leader Arnaud De Lie abandon on stage 4, with back-up option Milan Menten out the next day, and the team lost four riders by stage 12 after Lennert Van Eetvelt also crashed.

That was probably the biggest blow, because the Belgian climber was looking good until then, but in the end, they couldn't really turn their Giro around. Toon Aerts had a good ride to win the sprint behind Alec Segaert on stage 12, and Simone Gualdi was in some breaks, but this wasn't a great Giro for the newly merged squad. (MP)

Picnic-PostNL Raisin

• One-word review: Anonymous
• Achievements: Ninth on a breakaway stage for Barguil
• Room to improve: The team simply need better riders in their roster

It's hard to even call Picnic's race disappointing, because truthfully, our expectations were pretty low from the beginning. The team have massively struggled for results this year, and the Giro was no different.

Casper van Uden wasn't at his stage-winning level from last year, and Warren Barguil's best efforts weren't really enough to make success in a breakaway. Riders like Barguil, Tim Naberman and Frank van den Broek certainly had a go, but the team just aren't at the level they need to be. (MP)

Bardiani CSF-Saber 7

• One-word review: Persistent
• Achievements: One third place and lots of breakaway action
• Room to improve: Marcellusi is a good sprinter, but needs to be more consistent, perhaps needs a better lead-out

Bardiani are basically only ever in the Giro to be breakaway fodder, and I mean that with no disrespect, but that is their role, and they dutifully delivered. Manuele Tarozzi was a regular in attacks with the whole team having a go, and he picked up the win in the intermediate sprint classification., Martin Mercellusi also had a good sprint on stage 15 to give them a top-three finish.

The story that made headlines was, unfortunately, Enrico Zanoncello's disqualification, but other than that, the team delivered pretty much what they had to. No stage win, but a solid three weeks of getting involved in the race in the ways that they were able to. (MP)

Alpecin-Premier Tech

• One-word review: Forgettable
• Achievements: Pair of top 10s for Plowright, Price-Pejtersen seventh in TT
• Room to improve: Maybe finally invest in a climber?

Alpecin-Premier Tech didn't send an awfully strong team to the Giro to start with, with their ambitions lying more at the Classics and the Tour, but then their ambitions were dashed even further when Kaden Groves crashed out early on, eliminating their one real chance for a stage win.

Jensen Plowright stepped up and sprinted well, and Price-Pejtersen had a good TT, but largely their Giro was pretty forgettable, because they just don't really have any riders for the harder days. (MP)

Unibet Rose Rockets

• One-word review: Promising
• Achievements: Sprint top 10s for Groenewegen and climbing top 10s for Poels in Grand Tour debut
• Room to improve: Groenewegen needs to convert those top 10s into a win

Considering they were definitely the most talked-about wildcard team in the race, it's potentially surprising to see Unibet Rose Rockets finish at the bottom of the team rankings.

They had several top results for Dylan Groenewegen and Wout Poels, who punched above their ProTeam weight in sprints and climbs, but probably gave up some ranking points by focusing solely on these two goals and not so much on breakaways or GC.

Given it's their first-ever Grand Tour, they won't have too much to complain about, though, and despite not getting the win they wanted, it was a promising race for Grand Tours to come. (MP)

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