The Ineos Grenadiers team will try to complete their hat-trick in the Tour of Italy, and they will probably bet on Richard Carapaz to achieve this.
The first major cycling event of the season will take place without the two Slovenians who have dominated the world of professional cycling in recent years: Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar.
The last two “Giro” champions, Egan Bernal and Tao Geoghegan Hart, will also be conspicuous by their absence, since these two cyclists from the Ineos team are still recovering from injury and illness. The leading team will however be able to bet on the winner of the competition in 2019, Carapaz.
When Carapaz became the first Ecuadorian cyclist to win a major event, he was wearing a Movistar uniform. It was then the only time in four years that Ineos – formerly known as Team Sky – had not emerged as the great champion of the Italian event.
Carapaz, 28, also won the road race last summer at the Tokyo Olympics, in addition to finishing third in the Tour de France and second in the Tour of Spain in 2020.
However, he has not participated in a race since March – he chose to train at altitude in Ecuador – and two other cyclists have also donned the prestigious pink jersey: Vincenzo Nibali (2013 and 2016) and Tom Dumoulin (2017).
“That’s one of my goals this year; I want to do very well and try to win a second major title, Carapaz said on Wednesday. It’s a good goal, I’ve thought about it a lot and I will soon have this first great opportunity. »
“We came here with high hopes, and I believe that my preparation went very well… I am therefore in a very good state of mind at the dawn of this first major competition, and above all we have to believe that we can be the best, as we always have,” he added.
It should be noted that Alexander Cataford (Israel-Premier Tech), from Ottawa, will be the only representative of the maple leaf to take part in this competition.
The “Giro” will get underway on Friday with the first of three stages in Hungary, and will culminate on May 29 with the finish in Verona.