The first Grand Tour of the 2024 cycling season will get underway in northern Italy on Saturday night (AEST) — and all eyes will be on Slovenia's serial race-winner Tadej Pogacar.
Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) is already establishing himself as one of the greatest cyclists of his generation, if not all time.
The 25-year-old two-time Tour de France winner has enjoyed 10 days of racing so far in 2024, winning six of them, including one day classics Liège-Bastogne-Liège (his sixth Monument victory) and Strade Bianchi.
He also won four stages on the way to the overall, points and climbing jerseys at the seven-day stage race, the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
With several of the other major grand tour contenders of recent years absent from the Giro this year, Pogacar is fast becoming an unbackable favourite.
It's too far to say the Slovene is unbeatable — no grand tour has ever been won on paper before the racing starts in earnest — but he's not far off.
Ineos Grenadiers sports director Zak Dempster told Cycling Weekly that Pogacar is "probably capable of winning every stage in the Giro", describing him as "the elephant in the room, the young kid from Slovenia that smashes everyone".
The team's director of racing, former pro Steve Cummings, described Pogacar as "a bit of a freak" and "the favourite at every race he goes to" but stressed he is beatable, with Welsh veteran and last year's runner up Geraint Thomas looking to claim a maiden Giro title.
"The preparation for the Giro has gone really well," Pogacar said this week.
"I haven't raced too much so far this year, just 10 days, so I'm feeling fresh and ready to take on my first Giro. It's a race I've dreamed of doing for a long time and it feels like now that the time is right to go for it."
It will clearly take a monumental effort to stop him from adding the Maglia Rosa to his burgeoning collection of trophies.
And yet, there is an Aussie who is backing himself to at least challenge for a podium.
Ben O'Connor aiming high
Only one Australian has ever worn the pink jersey on the final podium of the Giro d'Italia, Jai Hindley in 2022.
Ben O'Connor, who already has a fourth-place finish at the 2021 Tour de France to his name, could become just the fifth Australian to finish on the podium of a grand tour — but is aiming higher than that.
As the leader of French team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, racing in France's showpiece annual sporting occasion is a pre-requisite, but the 28-year-old struggled to recapture that form in the last two years with a buttock injury curtailing his hopes in 2022 and illness disrupting him in 2023.
This year, he's been backed to compete at the Giro, a race he claims suits him and one he comes into in good form after a fifth-placed finish at the Tirreno-Adriatico.
"It is somewhere I have always believed I can perform well in, it is a race that really suits me well," he told Global Cycling News.
"Physically, I think [a podium is] there, it just comes down to all the other tickets.
"You know how difficult it can be, you can look at Primož [Roglic] at the Tour [de France] — he has tried multiple times and it just hasn't worked out yet there for him, whilst it's worked out for Pogacar and Jonas [Vingegaard].
"It can be a fickle business sometimes, grand tours always expose you and your weaknesses, so if you can just minimise that, that's your ticket in."
O'Connor's main weakness is time trialling and, with 71.8km of racing against the clock on this year's route, whether he can hold a position on the front will come down to whether he can limit his losses there.
However, his good form at Tirreno-Adriatico, and second place overall at both the UAE Tour and Tour of the Alps shows that O'Connor is in a rich vein of form.
Aussie sprinters looking to fire
O'Connor is just one of nine Aussies competing in the 3,400km race this year, with the hottest action set to take place in the sprints, of which there could be as many as eight over the course of the 21 stages.
Caleb Ewan returns to a race where he has five stage victories for the first time in two years with new team Jayco-AlUla.
Sport director David McPartland said the team aims to win "at least one stage with Caleb", while also backing new recruit Luke Plapp in the time trials, with the 23-year-old a possible dark horse for an overall podium spot.
Ewan will have stiff opposition, not least from fellow countryman Kaden Groves of Alpecin-Deceunick.
Groves is yet to win a race this season, but did secure a victory at the Giro on stage five last year as well as registering two, third-place finishes, so will back himself to perform.
Indeed, last year, the 25-year-old became just the fifth Australian to claim the points jersey at a grand tour when he won three stages at the Vuelta a España to win the green jersey, joining Michael Matthews (Tour de France 2017), Robbie McEwen (Tour de France 2006 & 2002), Baden Cooke (Tour de France 2003) and Cadel Evans (Giro d'Italia 2010).
The sprinting competition will be far more fierce in Italy than at last year's Vuelta.
Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), with seven race wins already in 2024, will be the fast man to beat, alongside home favourite and last year's points jersey winner, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).
Olav Kooij (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) is an intriguing grand tour debutant given his recent successes, while entertaining veteran Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty) and out of form Danish sprinter Fabio Jakobsen (dsm–firmenich PostNL) will hope to recapture some of their former speed to challenge at the pointy end.
New South Wales's Michael Storer will also be on the look out for stage wins, although the 2021 Vuelta King of the Mountain's domain will be the steepling ramps of Italy's most famous climbs, such as the Mortirolo, Stelvio and Monte Grappa.
The Giro gets underway on Saturday night, AEDT, with a 140km ride from Venaria Reale to Turin.
The race meanders down Italy's west coast to Naples and Pompei, before heading back up to the Alps and some of the most famous climbs in the sport.
The finale is a 125km processional stage around Rome on May 25.
You can watch the entire race on SBS or on SBS On Demand.
