After a weekend in Bulgaria to kick things off, the Giro d’Italia 2026 returned to Italy last Tuesday for a brilliant week of racing that saw breakaways, household name climbers and a ravaged pack of sprinters all taste glory.
The maglia rosa changed hands three times this week, from Guillermo Silva to Giulio Ciccone then Afonso Eulálio, who leads the race after nine stages. The Bahrain Victorious rider tops the standings currently by 2min 24sec over Jonas Vingegaard and 2min 59sec over Felix Gall in third place. Paul Magnier maintains his lead in the points classification while Jonas Vingegaard goes into the race’s second rest day in the blue mountains jersey. As the race leader, Eulálio also holds the white jersey, although that prize will be worn by Mathys Rondel when the race resumes on Stage 10.
With the second week getting underway with the Giro’s only time-trial on Tuesday, let’s take stock of the race situation at the moment. Who can come out of the first week with their head held high and who needs to go back to the drawing board as we approach the Giro’s halfway marker?
Winner: Jonas Vingegaard (of course)
This is a boring, but inevitable addition to our list of winners.
Jonas Vingegaard has won two stages, made significant gains in the GC and leads the mountains classification. The Dane has already stamped his authority on this race and has proven that he is the man to beat. Visma as a whole have looked strong in the mountains, with Davide Piganzoli the big standout among the squad’s roster so far. Everything is going to plan.
Although Vingegaard finds himself over two minutes behind the pink jersey, the two-time Tour de France winner has put significant daylight between himself and most of his key rivals, particularly Giulio Pellizzari, who started as the closest competitor on paper. Coming into the time-trial, a discipline in which Vingegaard has reguarly performed well, he can feel a sense of confidence that his gap will extend into substantial winning margins.
Winner: UAE Team Emirates-XRG
UAE Team Emirates-XRG left Bulgaria with half their team bus empty after losing three of their eight-man roster in a crash midway through Stage 2. With the team’s two best climbers, Jay Vine and Adam Yates, out of the race, they could have just put their feet up and reeled off the excuses.
However, this week has shown that the team won’t take it lying down. No, instead they picked up three of six stages on offer in Italy last week, starting with a brilliant effort from Jhonathan Narváez and Jan Christen on Stage 4, with Christen’s attack allowing the Ecuadorian to soar past an over-confident Orluis Aular to the win.
Without Yates to chaperone, the team were on the ball in the breakaways. 23-year-old Igor Arrieta stepped up to the plate to claim a nailbiting finish to Stage 5, despite crashing, going the wrong way, and only catching breakaway buddy Eulálio inside the final 500m. Just a few days later, it would be up to Mikkel Bjerg to make a clinical assist in Stage 8’s breakaway on behalf of stage winner Narváez.
The team managed to pick up three stages, spend most of the week in the white jersey, and find themselves runners-up in the maglia ciclamino with Narváez. It’s remarkable stuff, but what else do you expect from the world’s top-ranked team?
Winner: Felix Gall
With two summit finishes done, Felix Gall emerged as the second-best climber during the Giro’s opening week. Now positioned in third place, just 35 seconds behind Vingegaard, Gall finds himself in a great position going into the time-trial on Stage 10.
The Austrian rode cleverly on the two summit finishes as he made sure to follow a steady pace on Blockhaus instead of chasing Vingegaard’s wheel from the off. Then on Stage 9 he made sure to limit his losses when Vingegaard launched an inevitable attack under the flamme rouge. He’s never ridden outside of his means and that could prove vital in challenging for the podium.
Decathlon CMA CGM also seem confident in their leader. The team controlled Stage 9 in the hope of catching someone out. They were lucky that Pellizzari came unstuck, which handed Gall another chunk of time for his own podium chances. Gregor Mühlberger, who finished inside the top 20 at last year’s Tour de France, looks particularly strong at the moment.
As for Gall’s chances, a podium in Rome looks increasingly likely. His time-trial result on Stage 10 could be catastrophic, but his climbing legs look great so far. This is a guy who often builds in strength as the race progresses, so expect Gall to be a key figure in the brutal final week through the Alps and Dolomites.
Winner: Paul Magnier’s maglia ciclamino
It’s been a good week for Paul Magnier. Yes, we’ve already discussed his dream opening to the Corsa Rosa in Bulgaria, but the Frenchman has managed to steady the ship in his points jersey campaign. If anything, the past few days could have proven crucial for Magnier, despite a real lack of sprints this week.
While every other sprinter came a cropper on the final corner in Naples on Stage 6, the Frenchman somehow managed to get back in the saddle and sprint to third from a near standing start. This impressive sprint helped him bag 25 points, while rivals Jonathan Milan and Tobias Lund Andresen failed to collect any. This takes Magnier up to 130 points, almost double that of Milan.
Magnier’s near 70-point lead would require quite a challenge from Milan. The Italian has already tried to steal points in the breakaway, but it’s going to take a stage win or two to reverse the deficit if Magnier stays on this form. It won’t help Milan either knowing that there are several hilly finishes in week two, which should favour Magnier.
Loser: Egan Bernal
Netcompany Ineos came into the Giro d’Italia with a version of Egan Bernal that looked close to podium contention, having been in strong form throughout the spring. However, any aspirations they had of a Bernal podium can surely be forgotten about, since the Colombian finds himself almost seven minutes down in the GC at this point.
This comes after not one rough day, but several disappointing performances upon this Giro’s return to Italy last week. Firstly, he was shed on a relatively mundane climb during Stage 4, leading to Ineos sacrificing potential stage winner Ben Turner in order to keep Bernal afloat in the GC. Understandably, the Brit wasn’t happy.
Then came the mountains. At Blockhaus, Bernal dropped long before many of his usual rivals, leading to a significant three-minute deficit to Vingegaard. Then at Corno alle Scale, he misfired again. This time it wasn’t quite as heavy a loss, but it proved that something just isn’t quite working for the Colombian here at this Giro. Luckily, Netcompany Ineos still have Thymen Arensman within the top ten, and a strong time-trial could even move the Dutchman onto the podium during week two.
Loser: Enric Mas
It’s been a nightmarish week for Giro d’Italia debutant Enric Mas. The Spaniard looked good in Bulgaria, only to drop like a stone at the race’s first mountaintop finish on Blockhaus. That five-minute time loss was accelerated a few days later when he crumbled again on Corno alle Scale, leading to a further big time loss. Those performances mean the Mallorcan finds himself 13 minutes down in the GC right now, his worst position coming into a rest day since 2018.
To make matters worse, Mas has been ridiculed online for a wardrobe mix-up over the past few days, with many noticing that he had worn the Movistar women’s kit during the first week.
Regardless, the demise of the Mas project should allow Movistar to free up their roster. Soon, we’ll likely see the likes of Einer Rubio, Juanpe López and Lorenzo Milesi go all out for breakaway wins, which seem like realistic goals based on how they’re currently going. Who knows, maybe Mas will join them up the road once he recovers from this psychological setback.
Loser: Giulio Pellizzari
Giulio Pellizzari started this Giro d’Italia as many people’s pick for a podium finish. Some on our team even called him for the overall title, albeit on the off-chance that Vingegaard didn’t make it to Rome. The past few days however may have left the Pellizzari believers feeling anxious.
On Blockhaus, he was overly keen to match Vingegaard’s first attack, only to get dropped soon after and caught by his rivals, including teammate Jai Hindley. Things only got worse on Stage 9’s mountaintop finish too, when the youngster found himself distanced from the main peloton with a few kilometres still to go. The damage from these two off-days sees Pellizzari fall to ninth in the standings, 5min 15sec behind Eulálio and roughly three minutes behind Vingegaard. Interestingly, that places him a minute down on Hindley, who could push for leader status.
I’ll admit, Pellizzari has often grown in confidence as the Grand Tour develops. At last year’s Giro, he thrived in the final week. At the Vuelta last autumn, he picked up a stage in the final few days. That gives me some reason to believe he could make some time back come the Giro’s final week.
Losers: Most of the sprinters
There hasn’t been much handed to the sprinters since they touched down in Italy after the Bulgarian Grande Partenza.
On Stage 4, Movistar forced a split over the day’s hardest climb in order to weed out the main sprinters in Aular’s favour. That meant the only proper flat stage we got this week was ultimately derailed by a mass pile-up in the final corner, eliminating Jonathan Milan, Dylan Groenewegen and Tobias Lund Andresen from contesting the win.
For Milan, it’s a particularly tough week. His maglia ciclamino recovery plan has been halted, and his gap to Magnier has increased. Not just that, the weight of expectation seems to be getting heavier. Remember, the Italian has never gone this far into a Grand Tour without a stage win or without a day spent in the points jersey.
The second week offers one certain sprint stage, and one or two that could go down to a bunch gallop if the teams play their cards right. At this point in the race though, the bunch often gives more leniency to the breakaway, so it really could go either way.
Losers: WorldTour underperformers
We’re now nine stages into this Giro d’Italia, but plenty of teams are yet to move the needle in terms of results.
All but five teams have managed to finish inside the top ten on two or more occasions. Those five underperformers are Lotto-Intermarché, Alpecin-Premier Tech, Picnic-PostNL, Groupama-FDJ United and Pinarello-Q36.5. Those latter two squads haven’t even managed to score a single top-ten finish in this race, which is rather embarrassing given the solid results secured by wildcards Polti-Visit Malta, Bardiani CSF and Unibet Rose Rockets.
Some of these teams have really phoned it in, which is a shame for a Grand Tour. While there’s no immediate threat of promotion or relegation, it’s not a great sign for these supposedly top teams to be lagging far behind the others.
Picnic-PostNL are one that really bothers me, because theirs seemed like a decent roster on paper. Casper van Uden, a stage winner on last year’s race, has delivered this team just one top ten, and that was on that crash-littered Naples stage. The rest of the lineup has been catastrophically underperforming so far, which could be naively interpreted as a way to lose time intentionally in order to get into the breakaways later on.