'Modern' Giro might still clash with logic of Evenepoel's Red Bull move

It was repeated like a mantra throughout Monday’s presentation and again in the pink pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport on Tuesday morning. “It’s a modern Giro,” RCS president Urbano Cairo insisted in an interview with the newspaper he owns.

“Balanced,” was the expression preferred by outgoing race director Mauro Vegni, but regardless of the euphemism employed, the meaning was the same. 

There was tacit acknowledgement from both men that the route of the 2026 Giro d'Italia was not exactly in keeping with the event’s self-proclaimed status as the “world’s toughest race in the world’s most beautiful place.”

Italy being Italy, there will always be beauty to be found all along a Giro route, and 2026 is no exception, from the Bay of Naples to the Prealps of Friuli. But the toughest race in the world? On paper, at least, that doesn’t seem to be case on this occasion. 

Corporate diplomacy meant that the newspapers in the RCS stable, La Gazzetta dello Sport and Il Corriere della Sera, were never likely to point that out too starkly, but the route was met with an underwhelmed response from other quarters in Italy.

“It is a Giro without any signature stages, without any iconic locations, the ones that make a Giro special,” Cristiano Gatti complained on Tuttobiciweb, a lament echoed by Claudio Ghisalberti of Malpensa24: “Maybe it will turn out to be a wonderful, exciting, fascinating edition, but the signs point to the opposite.”

On BiciPro, Filippo Lorenzo wondered if the apparent weaknesses of the route might yet prove to be a positive. “On the whole, the third week seems to be more ‘relaxed’ than usual, especially in the final stages,” he wrote. “The classic trio of mountain stages is missing – but who knows, maybe that will be good for the spectacle and the attacks.”

That, indeed, was Vegni’s thinking when he opted to build stage 20 around Piancavallo rather than the Zoncolan. In years past, a backloaded race has often discouraged attacking racing – the subdued second week in 2023 was perhaps a nadir – but the 2026 contenders will have no such excuses.

As ever, the snap judgements on the Giro route are all in the eye of the beholder, and the maxim that Vincenzo Torriani, the race’s most emblematic director, used to dust off every year applies again here. The route is the canvas, he would say, but the riders will do the painting.

But which riders? The scaled-back nature of the route is in keeping with the race’s “modern” tendency to try to persuade at least one of the box-office stars of stage racing to try the Giro-Tour double.

For 2026, that clearly means Jonas Vingegaard and/or Remco Evenepoel, given that Tadej Pogačar looks destined once again to prioritise the Classics and the Tour de France. The route is tailored to RCS Sport’s best estimation of Vingegard and Evenepoel’s specifications.

For Vingegaard, there are enough mountains to win the Giro but not so many as to exhaust him ahead of the Tour. For Evenepoel, there’s a flat 40km time trial shortly before the midpoint and he never has to face three consecutive days in the high mountains.

It’s not yet known, however, if Vingegaard or Evenepoel will take the bait. Vingegaard has repeatedly stressed his desire to add the Giro to his palmarès, but his Visma | Lease a Bike team might not be ready to nudge him away from his usual Tour focus, despite Pogačar’s clear pre-eminence in the past two years.

Evenepoel looks even less likely than Vingegaard to topple Pogačar in July but that still doesn’t make him any more likely to ride the Giro in his first season as the figurehead of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Grand Tour attack.

The long time trial and (relatively) moderate dose of mountains could turn Evenepoel’s head towards the Giro, but Red Bull explicitly extricated him from his Soudal-QuickStep contract with a view to winning the Tour in the years ahead. 

All their investment in Evenepoel and his entourage has been predicated on the idea - or the hope - that Red Bull's additional funding and expertise can eventually carry the Belgian past Pogačar and to the summit of pro cycling. Racing against Pogačar at the Tour seems central to the whole project, even if he might not be in a position to beat him in year one.

With that in mind, Ralph Denk, Zak Dempster et al might prefer to have Evenepoel go all-in for the Tour in 2026 and measure himself directly against Pogačar, as Wim Vos pointed out in Het Nieuwsblad on Tuesday.

“Remco taking part would be completely illogical,” he wrote. “If Evenepoel decided this summer to close the door at Soudal Quick-Step behind him and move to Red Bull, there was one major reason: not the Giro, but the Tour de France. After seven pro seasons and two Tour participations, cycling’s biggest stage race remains unfinished business for Evenepoel.”

In theory, we shouldn’t have long to wait for Evenepoel’s decision. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe hold their 2026 media day in Mallorca next Tuesday, and it's expected that Evenepoel will outline his race programme on the occasion.

If Evenepoel opts against the Giro, Red Bull still have an array of options, including 2022 winner Jai Hindley, 2023 winner Primoz Roglič, Florian Lipowitz and emerging talent Giulio Pellizzari, who has signalled his desire to ride his home Grand Tour again.

Vingegaard’s decision, meanwhile, might not be made public until mid-January, when Visma hold their media day. If the Dane opts against the Giro, then defending champion Simon Yates might be expected to return as team leader. 

Before then, UAE Team Emirates-XRG will meet the press in Benidorm on December 13. With Pogačar expected to forgo the Giro, it seems all but certain that either Isaac del Toro or João Almeida will be given the freedom to lead in Italy next May.

All the focus right now is on Evenepoel and Vingegaard, but it’s hard to shake off the sense that UAE’s call might be of equal significance to the eventual outcome of the 2026 Giro, as former national coach Davide Cassani pointed out. 

“I don’t think Vingegaard can afford not to ride,” he told BiciSport. “But I think he’s reached his peak, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Del Toro managed to beat him.”