By Stefan Tabeling, dpa
The starting field for the 106th Giro d'Italia is higher-calibre than it has been for a long time. Belgian road world champion Remco Evenepoel and three-time Vuelta champion Primoz Roglic from Slovenia are the top favourites for today's time trial.
Former Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas and ex-Giro winner Tao Geoghegan Hart from Great Britain are also taking part. And what can German hopeful Lennard Kämna do?
The world champion
After winning the Tour of Spain 2022, world champion Remco Evenepoel is chasing his second Grand Tour victory. And the Belgian talent of the century is in good form. In April, he won the spring classic Liège-Bastogne-Liège with aplomb. Then it was back to the altitude training camp. The 23-year-old has long been on a par with the greats in his field. In Belgium, the exceptional athlete, who was still a junior international for Belgian football record champions RSC Anderlecht in 2016 and ran the Brussels half marathon in 1:16:15 at the age of 16, is already being compared to Eddy Merckx. Incidentally, the cycling legend also won the Giro before going on to the Tour and eventually triumphing five times.
The Olympic champion
Three-time Vuelta winner, Tour runner-up in 2020, Giro bronze medallist in 2019 - former ski jumper Primoz Roglic from Slovenia is almost guaranteed a top finish - if he makes it through. After all, bad luck has spoilt a few races for the 33-year-old. Roglic had to abandon the 2021 and 2022 Tour as well as last year's Vuelta after a crash. The Olympic time trial champion then underwent shoulder surgery. However, he has long since regained his form, as he proved with his victories at Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Catalunya - just ahead of Evenepoel, by the way. In the Jumbo-Visma team, however, he is now only number two behind Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard.
The old star
What is still possible for Welshman Geraint Thomas? The 36-year-old has not been able to match his outstanding form from his Tour victory in 2018. But it was still enough for a top place. Like last summer, when Thomas was the best behind the two high-flyers Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia) in France. This year he was set back by illness and has not yet been able to convince. The Ineos team hopes that Thomas will be able to get back into the mix in the difficult third week.
The ex-winner
Tao Geoghegan Hart is the only rider in the field to have won the Giro once before. That was in 2020, when the man from London was the big outsider and only took the pink jersey in the individual time trial on the final day. After that, not much went right for Hart. He didn't win a race for the last two years, until he recently returned at the Tour of the Alps with two stage wins and overall victory. His advantage could be the strong Ineos team.
The German hope
In recent years, Lennard Kämna has enjoyed every freedom in the German Bora-hansgrohe team and has repeatedly set individual highlights. In 2020, he won a stage in the high mountains at the Tour and in 2022 he triumphed in the Giro on Mount Etna. The 26-year-old also narrowly missed out on the yellow jersey with a spirited performance at the Tour of France. Now the highly talented rider - Kämna was already Junior World Champion in 2014 - wants to tackle the overall classification. Less spectacle, but three weeks at the limit in the circle of the best.
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