Derek Gee-West targets Giro d'Italia in debut Lidl-Trek season

Derek Gee-West has confirmed that he will target the general classification at the Giro d’Italia in his first season with Lidl-Trek. He placed an impressive fourth overall in last year’s Giro, which proved to be his final WorldTour outing for Israel-Premier Tech.

The Canadian has joined Lidl-Trek for the next three seasons after freeing himself from his previous contract with Israel-Premier Tech, now known as NSN Cycling Team.

Although Gee-West first linked up with Lidl-Trek at their training camp in Denia in December, the transfer was only formally announced last week. On Wednesday afternoon, he made his first public appearance as a Lidl-Trek rider in a video press conference in which he outlined his 2026 race schedule.

“I really love the Giro. Since I’ve been a kid it’s been my favourite Grand Tour,” Gee-West said. “I had a breakout race there in 2023. If I did it every year for the rest of my career, I’d be happy with it.”

After placing fourth overall in 2025, Gee-West will target a podium finish this time around after swapping Israel-Premier Tech for Lidl-Trek.

“Obviously, the resources and the expertise here is immense,” he said. “It’s so hard to tell what the differences will be because I haven’t raced yet. But that’s the goal, on a team like this, to shoot for the podium.”

Gee-West will start his season at the Volta ao Algarve, and he will then race the Volta ao Catalunya and the Tour of the Alps as he builds towards the corsa rosa, while the rest of his calendar has yet to be decided.

Gee-West will be joined by Giulio Ciccone and sprinter Jonathan Milan in Lidl-Trek’s Giro line-up. Although Ciccone has led the team’s challenge at the corsa rosa in recent years, the Italian has insisted that he will target stage victories rather than the GC in 2026.

This year’s Giro route looks well-tailored to Gee-West’s talents, with a 40km time trial to Massa on stage 10 and a slight reduction on climbing relative to last year.  

Gee-West’s podium rivals in Italy will include the race favourite Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike), João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).

“[Vingegaard] is obviously the 1A favourite going into the race, so there’s a lot of pressure on that team,” Gee-West said when asked how Vingegaard’s presence would affect the race.

“With Lidl-Trek, we obviously have a multi-goal strategy with the sprints, and with Giulio Cicone going for stages. So having a leader with a full team around him might help a lot just in terms of how the race is played out. It might be less chaotic.”

Fellow new arrival Juan Ayuso will lead Lidl-Trek at the Tour de France, where Mattias Skjelmose will serve as a key domestique and Mads Pedersen will chase the green jersey.

Gee-West has not raced since he won the Canadian Championships road race in late June. On the eve of the Vuelta a España, he issued a statement declaring that he had unilaterally terminated his contract with Israel-Premier Tech, citing “certain issues” that made his “continuation at the team untenable.”

Israel-Premier Tech responded by insisting that Gee-West remained a part of their roster and the rider later claimed the team had sought €30 million in damages. The case was referred to the UCI Arbitral Board, and last week NSN confirmed that it had reached an agreement with the UCI, Lidl-Trek and Gee-West to release him from his contract.

The signing of Gee-West underlines Lidl-Trek’s growing ambition following Lidl’s acquisition of a majority stake in the team. Luca Guercilena’s squad had already prised Ayuso away from his long-term contract with UAE Team Emirates-XRG to become their Tour leader.