Five breakaway specialists to watch at the 2026 Giro d'Italia

Of all the names on the start list, Soler has spent the most time off the front this season, racking up 820 kilometres in breakaways across eight long-range moves so far in 2026 and taking the stage 1 win at the Vuelta a Murcia in February in the process. 

UAE Team Emirates-XRG bring him to Italy as a stage hunter rather than a pure domestique, with João Almeida out of the race and Adam Yates carrying the team's GC ambitions. That gives Soler the kind of licence he does not always have at the Tour de France, where his role is usually tied to working for Tadej Pogačar.

The Spaniard's racing style fits the job he is being asked to do. Soler does not tend to need much company in the move, preferring instead to attack alone, hold a hard tempo from distance and grind whoever is left off his wheel by the line. 

This year's route offers exactly the kind of stages where that template can work, with medium mountain days to Fermo and Corno alle Scale, rolling Apennine stages, and tactical second half stages where the GC group may hesitate.

The Norwegian boasts the second most attack kilometres in the field this year and, unlike most pure stage hunters, he has already proved he can turn a breakaway into something bigger. 

At the 2023 Giro, Leknessund finished eighth overall and wore the maglia rosa for five days after getting into the move. With Uno-X Mobility riding their first Grand Tour as a WorldTeam this year, Leknessund arrives at the Giro with licence to chase exactly that kind of result again.

What separates him from the field is his ability to recover and go again. Most opportunistic riders pick one or two days, whereas Leknessund tends to be in the move four or five times across three weeks. He has also been one of the more aggressive riders in the recent spring Classics, with five breakaway attempts so far in 2026, including at Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. 

With Johannes Kulset framed as Uno-X’s protected GC card, Leknessund should have the freedom to chase results on his own without having to wait for a teammate.

Bet on a Bardiani CSF 7 Saber rider being in the day’s breakaway and you will win more often than not. Tarozzi was in seven of them at the 2025 Giro, and the early part of his 2026 season has continued in the same vein. 

Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo and the lumpier days at Tirreno-Adriatico have all seen the Italian get up the road early, in the kind of pattern that tends to be rewarded with at least one big result over three weeks.

Bardiani’s aim is simple: get in the breakaways, win a stage and justify the wildcard. Tarozzi looks like the rider most likely to deliver, with Filippo Turconi and Luca Paletti as supporting cards on the right kind of finish. The route gives him five or six realistic chances, and the GC group’s willingness to let moves go on the medium mountain days could decide whether teams like Bardiani get their shot at glory.

Scaroni is not strictly a breakaway specialist anymore, which is what makes him interesting. With Lorenzo Fortunato withdrawn from the start list, XDS Astana have shifted from a mountains classification strategy to building their race around Scaroni, with the Italian moving from support rider to outright leader in the space of two weeks. That kind of change in role can often bring out the best in riders who have spent the past year or two working for someone else.

The form is there to back it up. Scaroni won the Tour of Oman in February with a late attack on Jabal Al Akhdar, the kind of long range effort the Giro mountains tend to reward, and his eighth place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège suggests the climbing legs are sharp. 

He is already a Giro stage winner too, having taken last year’s stage 16 to San Valentino in a two up finish with Fortunato. The maglia azzurra is now well within reach, along with the realistic prospect of a second Giro stage win.

Poels is the veteran on this list, and the rider with a very specific personal goal. He won stages at the Tour and the Vuelta in 2023, leaving the Giro as the only Grand Tour missing from his stage win collection. 

Unibet Rose Rockets make their Grand Tour debut this year, and team owner Bas Tietema has made clear that Poels is the team’s mountain card alongside Dylan Groenewegen’s sprint operation. That should give him plenty of freedom on the harder days.

Poels is 38 and the wins have been thinner since his Bahrain years, but the stages on offer suit a rider with his experience. He does not need to attack from 100 kilometres out so much as make the right move on the right day, and his career suggests he tends to know which day is which. 

The medium mountain stages in the second half of the race look more interesting for him than the hilly southern Italy days in week one, where the GC group is more likely to keep things tight on stages that are not yet decisive.