The Teams
Mitchelton-Scott:
They will obviously be the first to come up because they have the defending champion. Annemiek van Vleuten is an obvious favourite for the race. After all, she was already a world class cyclist before she had a terrifying accident whilst busy trying to win the Olympic Road Race. Left for dead face down on the kerb with a broken vertebrae, that could have easily been it. But just as with Steve Austin (not the Stone Cold one, the other one), "we can rebuild her... we have the technology". Annemiek van Vleuten was stitched back together again with a six million dollar bionic skeleton perfectly configured for cycling and constructed entirely out of titanium and awesomeness, and since then she's been on an incredible tear. She comes into the race the defending champion, the world champion, and having won several tough climbing races since the return to racing. Her opponents will take solace in that she didn't look quite so untouchable at La Course, that she's not a great sprinter if bonus seconds come into it, and that, at 38, she has to hit the wall at some point, right? After all, she's thrown the race away with a mistake in a flat stage befoore, and this course is light on the long specialist climbs that she's made her own since relocating to Livigno and training with Mitchelton's men's team. And, of course, crashes happen, much as though we'd rather they didn't, and they can change a race - and a career - in an instant.
If crashes or similar do derail Annemiek's bid for the GC, though, they still have Amanda Spratt, so that's really not a bad fallback option, since she was on the podium herself last year. Now, it is true that in many respects Spratt's recent successes have been benefiting from van Vleuten much as van Vleuten used to benefit from Vos, with opposition letting her gain more time than she needs in the fear of giving Annemiek a free ride. But Spratt is often underrated - including by me, definitely - as a result. She attacked on the Urkiola pass some 60km from home in the Emakumeen Bira in 2018, and was strong enough to hold that advantage to the line. She dropped a lot of highly vaunted climbers on Altopiano di Montasio to cement that podium last year. She's a bit of a late bloomer, but she's been a quality pro for several years who has been biased in skillset towards the climbs, so she really can't be given much rope. Plus there's also Lucy Kennedy, a latecomer to cycling who nevertheless clearly has the endurance and skillset to succeed - and would have won a Giro stage last year had she not celebrated prematurely and given Marianne Vos an extra half second to catch her, which at the speed Marianne was travelling on that cobbled hill in Piedicavallo was more than enough.
Alé-BTC Ljubljana:
Effectively not a merger but a bit of a grafting of some of the better riders from BTC onto the old Alé team, it seems they're going to be a mountains team this year. Eugenia Bujak doesn't seem to mix it up in sprints often these days, and the old hands will handle the climbing. Tatiana Guderzo and Mavi García are the same age, but you'd never think it from racing; Guderzo's heyday is nearly a decade in the past, while García goes from strength to strength lately after only moving into cycling from triathlon after turning 30. Tatiana is not explosive nowadays and doesn't tend to win much of anything in recent years, but she's always motivated for the Giro and, as a former world champion and podium athlete in the race, is worth keeping an eye on, especially for the maglia azzurra. García just won two stages of the Tour de l'Ardêche, including a real beast of a stage to Font d'Urle, so she's a bit of a wildcard.
Aromitalia-Vaiano:
Letizia Borghesi won a stage from the break last year. Realistically that's their best hope; the team consists of five Italian youngsters who are 24 or younger, and Rasa Leleivyte, the Lithuanian who would almost certainly have moved on had it not been for that positive test in her past. She's a good bet to finish around 7th or 8th on the punchy finishes but as she came from sprinting originally, she tends to be less competitive as climbs tend longer. She can finish well at places like Plumelec and the Giro dell'Emilia but against an all-star cast she'll be a bit quieter.
Astana:
Arlenis Sierra is comfortably their best name, while they may have some wildcard hopes for Blanca Liliana Moreno. Both tend to get their best results in the UCI America Tour, however, so breakaways and well chosen moves are their best hope of anything beyond some decent placements from Sierra I'd have thought.
BePink:
Another team of local prospects, albeit with some older, more experienced heads like Silvia Valsecchi and Simona Frapporti to keep them on the level. They've managed to spring the occasional surprise such as with Kseniya Tuhai in 2015 or unearthing Nikola Nosková in 2017, so don't write them out completely, but it will be a surprise if they're up in the mix.
Bizkaia-Durango:
Smallish Spanish team, their big thing will be Italian cyclocross specialist Alice Maria Arzuffi who is a pretty capable climber and could get up into the top 20.
Boels-Dolmans:
The obvious contender to van Vleuten is Anna van der Breggen, who is calling premature time on her career soon, albeit perhaps delayed a biit to give her a chance to defend her Olympic title. Or both Olympic titles, as some within women's cycling have suggested. Either way, this looks a good route for Anna, seeing as there are two nice steep punchy finishes and you can't really get anybody who likes a punchy finish more than somebody who has won on the Mur de Huy five times in a row. Anna, like van Vleuten, is a proper ATV of a climber, powerful and punchy, and strong against the clock too. She's a real threat. The strange thing, though, is that Boels have largely sent a rouleuse corps in support of her. OK, there's no, say, Dideriksen, but after Karol-Ann Canuel, who hasn't been as strong as a couple of years ago, the third best climber on the team is probably Amy Pieters, although in fairness Blaak is fine on smaller climbs and Buurman, though really signed to be a pocket rocket kind of reduced-bunch-sprint-on-a-lumpy-stage rider, is no mug. Only d'Hoore is somebody who doesn't really climb at all, and that's because she's one of the few truly elite sprinters to be on the startline. Those few stages with flattish finishes will see her really fighting to come into her own. No Katie Hall is a shame as she would have added a further contender or a real 1B option alongside van der Breggen, but pandemics are pandemics I'm afraid.
Canyon-SRAM:
Another frontline team who will be fighting for the podium, the logical leader for Canyon is Kasia Niewiadoma. The combative Pole, since being11th as a teenage neo-pro, has been the model of consistency at the Giro, finishing 5th, 7th, 6th, 7th and 5th in her five attempts since. She has tended to stall out in the middle of the top 10 as she seems to go best on mid-length kinds of climbs, in the 4-8km kind of range, similar in scale to those she's grown up climbing in the mountains of southern Poland, so this might be her best chance yet to make the step forward to the podium. After all, she's been around a long time, but she's still only 25. And if La Course is anything to go by, she has added descending to her arsenal, stringing out the bunch and even breaking away from it on the descents from early in the race. One thing's always for sure with Kasia though - she won't die wondering. If she has the legs to compete, we'll know about it because she'll be attacking left right and centre. With Omer Shapira and Alena Amialiusik she has good climbing help, with Hannah Barnes and Lisa Klein she has some strong engines and with Elena Cecchini the team have one of the smarter riders in the bunch when it comes to tactics and the right moves to follow.
CCC-Liv:
Possibly the strongest top-down team in the entire race. The on-paper weakest rider is Pauliena Rooijakkers, who just came from the podium of the Giro dell'Emilia and would be a more than serviceable #1 helper for just about any leader in this race. That's how strong they are. Sabrina Stultiens is a bit quieter than she used to be these days, but the rest of the team are about as top line as it comes. Sofia Bertizzolo has been WWT U23 champion and is strong in a variety of terrains; Soraya Paladin had a superb 2019 season and has a fast finish as well as being able to get over a lot of obstacles - including most that the 2020 Giro Rosa includes - and then you have the two leaders. I think this year's route is one that is more suited to Vos than to Moolman-Pasio; typically Vos has been able to compete over this kind of terrain, and it's been when the Giro has gone to the really serious climbs that she's fallen away - Monte Beigua in 2013 and Torre di Fraele last year for example - whereas Ash has been best when the climbs have gone to the really tough level - her best climbing performance was taking Mitchelton apart on Jaizkibel in 2017, and she was the one to come closest to breaking van Vleuten on the Zoncolan. However, being on the same team as Eddy Merckx does rather limit your options as leader; nevertheless this is a serious contender for Annemiek and Amanda as the strongest GC hydrahead in the race. There's one that could potentially come close later on in the startlist but I'm not so sure about.
Ceratizit-WNT:
WNT are almost out of their role as the surprise climbing package now. Last year their depth as climbers was a real out-of-nowhere surprise as they seemingly put together a top climbing corps out of odds and ends - late starting Italian Erica Magnaldi and Basque escaladora Ane Santesteban were odd pickups for a British team that had historically focused on sprints and Benelux one-day races, then Clara Koppenburg emerged as a climbing talent and they picked Janneke Ensing up off the waiver wire when she fell out with Sunweb. Obviously that corps has been taken apart to some extent, but they still have half of it, and Magnaldi will be motivated as well as being the best of the 4 at last year's Giro. Brennauer, Wild and Confalonieri is a hell of a lot of firepower for what little flat racing there is.
Cogeas-Mettler:
The most bonkers team in the péloton, they are a completely mad mix that are like a team version of the mercenary rider, and I have no idea what to expect. Maria Novolodskaya is a genuine prodigy, or seems like it in the races she gets to do. She's just come from committing assault and battery on the hopes and dreams of everybody in the péloton in a series of middling Turkish races at high altitude and with mountains, and she's still only just turned 20. But she may end up having to forgo her own interests in favour of that of the team's other project, which is bringing together as many veteran, shady names as they can - they have Olga Zabelinskaya, now 40 and with plenty of history both good and bad, and Amber Neben, the former world time trial champion now 45 years old. Half the team are shady veterans, half the team are young Russian talents, and all 6 could contest for the top 10 or miss the time cut almost any day of this. Oy vey.
Cronos-Casa Dorada:
A new mid-budget Spanish team, they're also an odd collection, but with considerably less baggage. Małgorzata Jasińska is getting older and less competitive the last couple of years after her initial renaissance at Movistar, but thankfully no less combative so I'd expect to see their jersey off the front a good few times thanks to her capable instincts. They also got Rachel Neylan off Movistar but her best results feel a long time ago now. Of more interest will be the two Italians - Soraya Paladin's younger sister Asja, and Nadia Quagliotto, who memorably lost a stage win to premature celebrations last year, and has a reasonably good finish that she puts to good use on the national calendar but has been hard-pushed to replicate just yet internationally.
Équipe Paule Ka:
The former Bigla/Cervélo team have had a tumultuous time of late, and it is a great disappointment to see them line up without either their best climber, Clara Koppenburg, or their young climbing prospect Nikola Nosková. Nevertheless, while stage wins may become their target instead, they have some useful weapons for that. Lizzie Banks won a Giro stage last year, for starters, while late starter Marlen Reusser has great TT skills to perhaps take a late flyer. Emma Norsgaard is a prospective phenom, while Niamh Fisher-Black looked very impressive in La Course.
Eurotarget-Bianchi:
A small Italian team, I think they'll be break fodder here, largely young riders and shorn of two of their more well-known names, with sprinter Arianna Fidanza moving on to Lotto and Romanian champion Ana Maria Covrig, always visible in attack moves late on in the Giro (having good day-on-day recovery to be fresh to attack but not the overall level to compete for the stage, generally), retiring.
FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope:
FDJ will come into this race with aspirations of the podium or at least a top 10, and we should all want that because, you know, CILLE. The charismatic, impulsive and lovably insane Dane is a very strong candidate for the upper echelons of the GC, having won the Giro dell'Emilia last month suggesting good puncheuse form. She did crash of course in Plouay which cost her in La Course, but a rested Cille will be a competitive Cille, and as I've said before, we should all want a competitive Cille because the better she does, the more likely people are to put a microphone in front of her. I hope nobody ever tries to give her media training, and if they do, she takes it about as seriously as Kimi Räikkönen took his, because she is the best thing about the sport of cycling in 2020. She also has some good backup - Brodie Chapman quietly amassed a lot of really good results last year, and Emilia Fahlin was just showing in La Course that she might be getting back to the kind of level she was at before her injuries. If so, she could win a reduced or punchy sprint here as well, which takes a bit of pressure off Cille, seeing as the latter's sprint is... well, I might back her in a two-up against Longo Borghini, at a push.
Lotto-Soudal:
Having mentioned Fidanza before, she has come across to Lotto, though she will be subsumed to work for Lotte Kopecky, you would expect, as an outside shot at a couple of the flatter stage finishes. Elsewhere, Julie van de Velde was 17th in the Giro last year and is a pretty functional climber who will often be among those who come in in the group behind the van Vleutens and van der Breggens of this world. She quietly had a pretty good 2019, ninja-style, and she was top 10 over Xorret del Catí in the Setmana Valenciana, beating much more vaunted climbers like Hall, Ludwig and García.
Lviv Cycling Team:
Debutantes at the Giro, this Ukrainian team is an odd choice, but they do have longtime Giro Rosa stalwart Yevgeniya Vysotska. Now 44, the veteran Ukrainian has often built her whole season around one more tilt at the Giro, her best result being 6th back in 2010 when riding for Valdarno in support of Tatiana Guderzo. Now largely confined to small Italian teams and mercenary racing, she's slowly drifted back among the pack and now finishes in what men's cycling fans might call the Francis de Greef zone. The team don't do many major races in Europe so it's hard to really judge the riders based on what they do in small races in Turkey and China.
Movistar:
Movistar's Giro plans were thrown into chaos last week; their main plan was built around the featherweight climber Eider Merino, but after she was a good little Basque climber, i.e. she crashed on a descent and managed to injure herself in the Tour de l'Ardêche, she is unavailable to start. As a result, bib #1 for them goes to Katrine Aalerud, the Norwegian who is potentially a surprise - she likes steep gradients and finished top 10 in the Monte Zoncolan stage in 2018 - and their other hopes will likely rest on Colombian prospect Paula Patiño, who went well in Ardêche but whose pack skills need a bit of work it seems. Guarischi or Biannic might be able to nab a sprint or two or interject themselves from the right break.
Servetto-Piumate-Beltrami TSA:
Another team of young Italians, their squad of inexperienced riders is supplemented by two Russians, Anna Potokina and Kseniya Dobrynina. Form for them is an unknown with no real racing since lockdown, but I'd be surprised if they provide more than the occasional break fodder.
Team Sunweb:
An interesting team for the GC here, they have a pretty young team. The route I believe is such that Juliette Labous is the smart name to put their weight behind; she narrowly missed the top 10 last year and is more at home on longer climbs than their other youth superstar prospect, Liane Lippert. I feel Lippert to be more of a puncheuse, so although she may be more consistently strong than Labous, the Frenchwoman is the better suited rider to this kind of course. They're only 21 (Labous) and 22 (Lippert) respectively so plenty of development time yet, too. The other GC possibility to take some pressure off would be Leah Kirchmann; she was 8th back in 2016 and in the break in the Torre di Fraele stage last year. She also fought out the Women's Tour GC to salvage the race after Lippert collapsed on the Epynt climb in 2019. Floortje Mackaij is a great hand for all terrains and Coryn Rivera is punchy enough to potentially contest a couple of stages here, and prove to the team she still has a role there after the signing of Lorena Wiebes...
Top Girls Fassa Bortolo:
No stars, just prospects, but they're just absolute fixtures of the race and it would be wrong not to see them there.
Trek-Segafredo:
This is going to be an interesting one. The obvious leader is of course Elisa Longo Borghini. She's on home territory and she has been on the podium here before. The problem for Elisa is that she has almost always managed to have one bad day that completely puts paid to her GC bids. Often on her home roads, such as at the San Domenico di Varzo climb. Like Niewiadoma, she's pretty consistent - her results in the Giro Rosa are 18th, 9th, 5th, 8th, 11th, 2nd, 10th, 8th. She largely settles at the bottom end of the top 10 when there is serious climbing to be done; the one edition she was in genuine contention for the win for, however, was 2017's southern route, away from the pressure of home roads and without a major MTF to crack on. She also had the issue of sharing leadership with Mara Abbott, which is the kind of relationship which is locker room poison; "sharing leadership" with Mara generally translates as taking the responsibility to lead all year, then being asked to slave away for Mara on the few races Mara swans in to do, never to see that work reciprocated. At Trek, it's largely different, despite now being asked to share leadership with another rider known for being rather ungrateful, as the reactions to Lizzie Deignan's non-suspension in the Olympic lead-in from her fellow riders could tell you. However, while she has always been quick to take credit for successes and apportion blame for failures, the one time a year Lizzie has always been happy to put her own goals aside and be a good domestique has been the Giro. Then again, though, Lizzie may never have a better chance to be a GC player in the longest women's stage race than this. She was 15th back in 2009 and hasn't sniffed that again - but in recent years her climbing has improved markedly. She went from being one for the classics who could occasionally handle a hillier one to somebody who took wins in the Trofeo Binda and was among the best in the Ardennes. She then went to being somebody who could podium on the Col d'Izoard. She won the Women's Tour over what you'd call typical Armitstead terrain in 2016, but in 2019 it was a hillier race much more attuned to the rider she is now, rather than then. Would she be tempted to go for her own goals in a truncated season? Or will she be happy to ride for Elisa here and save herself for the World Championships, which she must surely like the look of on the Imola course? The two Americans will provide plenty of capable climbing help - Tayler Wiles won a HTF at Emakumeen Bira last year for example, and was 2nd in the queen stage of the Tour of California the year before as well - while in van Dijk and Cordon-Ragot the team has two incredibly powerful, persistent and selfless rouleuses.
Valcar-Travel & Service:
The final team on the startline, Valcar are another team largely comprising young Italians, though there is rogue Trinidadian Teniel Campbell on the startlist for them, who has come through the UCI World Cycling Centre. They're a bit more enticing than some of the other small Italian teams though, even if young sprint sensation Elisa Balsamo is nowhere to be seen; they have got Marta Cavalli, however, a very promising 22-year-old who has been 5th in the Emakumeen Saria, coming in in a small group with the likes of Moolman-Pasio, Cille, Mavi García, Spratt, Magnaldi and Eider Merino, so clearly she is no mug. She was also top 20 in the Tour of California (inc. the Mount Baldy MTF) and the Women's Tour last year, so signs are good.