Rate the 2026 Giro d'italia

[Ilmaestro99]

Self explanatory - give reasons in thread please

Votes cannot be changed.

 

[Cookster15]

Rated a 4. The winner and runner up were never in doubt. 3rd was interesting. But really there didn’t seem to be any mountain stages which were exciting. All more or less a procession with the strongest riders strung out behind an obviously far superior Vingegaard who did it easily.

Maybe others would rate lower but I am a generous person.

 

[vappa]

Voted 3

Bad: Battle for the win wasn't interesting, equally for podium, the best climbers unsurprisingly got the podium. Gall wasn't attacked on any descend, apart from stage 5 the weather was way too summer-like. Start in Bulgaria was a miss, half of UAE abandoning on stage 2, too many breakaway stages for me, dangerous sprint finishes, neutralisation of the final lap in Milan

Good: Eulalio, Magnier stepping up among the best sprinters, very entertaining stage 5

 

[Kopfsteinpflaster]

Don't think I can go higher than 4. 3 without Eulalio.

The fifth stage was spectacular. The images of the landscape and the fans' enthusiasm were spectacular. Afonso honoring both jerseys was great.

But the GC fight outside of Eulalio was really underwhelming. Some of the stages were really underwhelming. A flat stage on the last Sunday before Rome was a joke.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Uninspiring route, zero GC competition.
Dragging the score up to three involved Bettiol's stage win, the big city sprint stages, Valgrens win and Eulalio's brave racing.

 

[oronet commander]

Gave it a 3, somewhat boring. Visma/Vingegaard adopted a US Postal/Sky strategy: all controlled during the stage, very fast tempo in the last climb, followed by the inevitable surge and win of their leader. Very effective but predictable and boring as hell. The secondary actors, except Eulalio and a few more, were not entertaining either.

 

[Netserk]

3 or 4

static , repetitive and boring gc fight mostly -- i had hoped wed see the rb duo attack gall , but the duo quickly became a single and the visma train also effectively kept gall fully secured

only 3 boring sprints , both milan and rome were good flat stages

eulalio and gee brought most joy to the race , and movistar were great too

 

[Ulle97]

Not sure what could be done with the route to produce a more exciting race, when inevitably, Vingegaard would win anyway.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

A bad race, but at least better than the comparable 2024 edition. All three minor classifications were competitive (though it's a shame how the ciclamino battle ended) and we had plenty of good breakaway action outside the mountain stages. Having said that, the GC action was pretty rancid, also between the podium contenders. The guys behind the top-4 were a lot more entertaining, especially Eulalio, but that can never save it, especially when five out of six mountain stages go to the peloton and all play out almost identically.

All in all, it's a 3.5/10 for me. Ciclamino going all the way to Rome would have made it a 4, some variety on the mountain stages (both in terms of route and tactics) would have made it a 5, which is probably the best this field could realistically have produced.

 

[Bkinn]

I put a 6 by mistake, the Giro was a bit boring, there was a clear favorite and his team controlled the race without incidents.

And 16 stages were won by only four teams so there wasn't variety in winners either.

 

[AmRacer]

Jonas would have won anyway, but maybe there would have been some suspense without the UEA crash.

 

[Ulle97]

A bad race, but at least better than the comparable 2024 edition. All three minor classifications were competitive (though it's a shame how the ciclamino battle ended) and we had plenty of good breakaway action outside the mountain stages. Having said that, the GC action was pretty rancid, also between the podium contenders. The guys behind the top-4 were a lot more entertaining, especially Eulalio, but that can never save it, especially when five out of six mountain stages go to the peloton and all play out almost identically.

All in all, it's a 3.5/10 for me. Ciclamino going all the way to Rome would have made it a 4, some variety on the mountain stages (both in terms of route and tactics) would have made it a 5, which is probably the best this field could realistically have produced.

I prefer when the actual favourites win the mountain stages. I hate when the break wins, and you have to do all the calculations in your head regarding who lost time.
My head can only compute when the GC guys win it outright. Or even worse, the top few riders contest the stage win, and the remnants of the breakaway are still in the top 10. Hate that!!!

Breakaway for those rolling stages and transitional days. Leave the mountains to the GC men.

 

[Peyresourde]

Gave it a 3 because it was much more enjoyable than the Vuelta last year.
I did not like the route beforehand, and I still don't like it in hindsight. Even with the best possible GC battle imaginable, it would have probably been a 6 max for me.

 

[Brullnux]

The mountain stages were historically bad, very monotonous.

The medium mountain stages and flat stages were quite good but also lacked any GC battle, other than Stage 2. There was good action on some of these days and only two or three routine sprint stages. Probably a 4 all things considered, similar to 2024 and better than 2023.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

I have given a 3, but for me it's closer to a 4 than a 2.

Some of the things I enjoyed about this giro:

-eulalio (who has become one of my favourite riders and who is what I will remember this giro for)
-gee/Storrer/caruso trying stuff, (but ultimately being netralised)
-stage 4 to cosenza (thanks to movistar)
-stage 5 was the best stage of the race
-the final stage in Rome was much better than procession stages often are

None of the positives however take away from the frankly horrible GC battle, just like in 2024. There was no overwhelming or memorable narrative to the race. Bora, arensmen, gall tried nothing, vingegard and Visma didn't have to trying anything.

The route was horrible to riders like storror and gee who did try to race with cojones (although only on one stage).

I really won't remember much from this giro (just like 2023 and 2024).

 

[Keldergoat]

I think RCS needs to consider changing its approach going forward:

- Spending big money to attract a big star is making the GC battle completely predictable
- Making the Giro less hard to attract riders who want to do the double is taking away what the Giro made special.
- Ending with a sprint stage instead of a final TT is stupid as well. Some of the most memorable Giro's ended with a TT (Menshov's crash, Dumoulin blasting Quintana).

In all fairness, ever since 2020, I have only seen mediocre Giro's. Whereas in the 2010s it became my favourite race with memorable editions, especially between 2015 and 2018. Things are starting to look structural, and RCS can be blamed for that at least partially.

 

[Sciatic]

Im not rating the race but I did review the team’s post-race spreads: despite their not great (though saved by Bettiol) performance, Astana rated the highest in that category. They even had a grill going

https://imgur.com/IWSyprM

View: https://i.imgur.com/IWSyprM.jpeg

 

[CyclistAbi]

2023 Giro edition was much better, IMHO.

 

[iBanesto]

10/10 for me.

Pogacar didn't win.

 

[Brullnux]

Im not rating the race but I did review the team’s post-race spreads: despite their not great (though saved by Bettiol) performance, Astana rated the highest in that category. They even had a grill going

https://imgur.com/IWSyprM

View: https://i.imgur.com/IWSyprM.jpeg

Astana's performance was excellent! Two stage wins in the first six days, the maglia rosa, sixteen (!) to 10s, 7 stage podiums.

It tailed off towards the end because their main guy for mountain breaks had to pull out, and it's hard to keep up the momentum after three stage wins and a break a day in the first two weeks. But I don't think they could have ever hoped for more

 

[mikks]

I gave it 5/10, meaning average. But my expectations were low, which probably inflated my rating.


I watched the GC action — if we can call it action — not with hope of suspense, but to get answers to some secondary questions. How good is Jonas? A little better than I expected. Is Gee-West a serious GT racer or just a forum meme? So-so. Does Bernal — I have a soft spot for him — still have one good result, at least a top five, in his legs? Probably not. Has Pellizzari improved? Not sure. And so on. These secondary questions sort of helped to keep some of my interest.

 

[Rob5091]

Non-GC guys made the race entertaining otherwise, as has been pointed out, it was Vingegaard-Gall-Hindley on all the all important climbs.
Eulalio, Movistar, Astana and Jasper Stuyven the best of the rest.

A minus figure for some of the very dodgy parcours.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

No vote yet, as it would be unfair having only watched 11/21 stages.

The high MTFs became very static and predictable without any personal issues multitasking with everything else here while having half an eye on the riders up their way.

While other stages left me completely on the edge of my seat for several hours in some cases. Among other things, I particularly like the stage finals in Hungary, and the stages to Cosenza and Potenza (also for family reasons, I know the region well, and what a fun finale) and especially the Andalo stage is like a record I can put on again and enjoy in full length, not just for the dark winter months, but actually already tomorrow again for the third time.

To use the words of street kids, RCS has managed to do a lot of "meh-meh-meh" in composing a coherent work.
I could have done without several of the very short high mountain stages and would've instead have liked more exhausting very long marathon stages.
Especially when I consider yesterday's post Rome race interviews in the Danish Eurosport camp of Danish riders, i.e. the grupetto part, they gave the clear impression that it had been a light Giro, where they had not come out exhausted, but with stronger legs.

It doesn't have to have been 5-6 260k/7MT 1996 Pamplona stages, but just half of them. And then spice them up with a hard breakaway terrain the following day, charged directly to another big mountain stage - I think the peleton and the GC would've wavered a bit more forth ( when you disregard the top podium position)

So I will wait to cast an official vote here until I have seen all the stages sometime in about 6-7 months, but with 11 out of 21 watched stages a 6/10 from here so far.

 

[gunara]

A boring 4 for mundane reasons that made it a 10 like almost enjoyable first week including Eulalio-Arrieta stuff of legend, Eulalio again, having a visible Caruso making it feel like a proper Giro sometimes, Gall actually being good for the whole race other than TT, then -6 for all the yawnings.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

I think RCS needs to consider changing its approach going forward:

- Spending big money to attract a big star is making the GC battle completely predictable
- Making the Giro less hard to attract riders who want to do the double is taking away what the Giro made special.
- Ending with a sprint stage instead of a final TT is stupid as well. Some of the most memorable Giro's ended with a TT (Menshov's crash, Dumoulin blasting Quintana).

In all fairness, ever since 2020, I have only seen mediocre Giro's. Whereas in the 2010s it became my favourite race with memorable editions, especially between 2015 and 2018. Things are starting to look structural, and RCS can be blamed for that at least partially.

I partly agree with your observations.

However, I think the sprint finish of yesterday up a slightly rising power hill after a technical bend and with the Forum Romanum in the background and around the streets was absolutely fantastic.

But I also enjoyed the 2009 ITT finishing a few hundred meters away around the Colloseum (Konovalovas over Wiggins by 1 sec or so), a nice lottery with as far as I remember partly wet cobblestones for the GC guys, etc, all on a board of chance, good technique, hectic - instead of pure sprint cruise stage with goodies distribution from the Haribo box.

I would suggest for every 2nd year a cruise with a hectic sprint finish in fashionable and picturesque surroundings, and inbetween editions with final stage as a technical and demanding ITT in order to spice things up, like e.g. the 2012 edition which turned it all upside down.

Regarding your comment about "easy stages", in fact quite often happens that the stages that you think will be boring actually turn out to be some of the most exciting, if they are just put properly together.
The man from Thy, Northern Jutland does not need many altitude meters as a training day, but seasoned with enough curls and small ramps, then there is a possibility that Jonas, Pogi, Remco, Paul or similar from the top GC shelf will not get half a cruise day up a long mountain in lonely majesty.

It requires the right composition. For instance. a very exhausting distance in the high mountains, followed by a hard +3500hm hilly attacker stage, where the GC team is challenged by staying together in the pack and then followed up by a new pure mountain day without having recovered much - unlike this year.