Giro 2021 Favourites stage 1: Ganna’s dash for pink

Obviously, young Remco Evenepoel will want to put down a marker. But there is a big question mark hovering over his head. The Flemish super star fell into a ravine in last year’s Tour of Lombardy and has been out of competition since then.

In 2019, Evenepoel outgunned Filippo Ganna in both the European and World Championships time trialing. Those two were the last two chrono races that they both competed in.

The first ITT is played out on a flat route of 9 kilometres. Perfect for riders who can push a big gear. So, riders like Ganna.

The Italian has been on fire for more than a year now, particularly in terms of time trialing. Last autumn, he stormed to a commanding World title, finishing almost half a minute faster than Wout van Aert and Stefan Küng. He continued his winning streak this February on the UAE Tour, but after winning eight time trials in a row since January 2020, Ganna finished third behind Van Art and Küng in the ITT of the Tirreno-Adiatico.

Van Art and Küng are not riding the Giro, yet, Evenepoel is…

The start list of the Giro is not yet confirmed, so we’ll update this article later.

Favourites 1st stage 2021 Giro d’Italia

*** Filippo Ganna, Remco Evenepoel
** João Almeida, Victor Campenaerts, Thomas De Gendt
* Alex Dowsett, Jos van Emden, Matthias Brändle, Jan Tratnik

Another interesting read: route stage 1 Giro d’Italia 2021.