Evenepoel and Roglic are the favourites, Ganna wants the pink jersey immediately – Corriere.it

The sea to the right, dark blue and dotted with overflows, must not lead to temptation: no distractions under the aerodynamic helmet, at an average of 50 km per hour, this morning, on the cycle path from Fossacesia to Ortona, the first postcard that Giro d’Italia number 106 sends to the world. on this strip of sustainable asphalt, redeveloped for the pink race, that the jet man Philip Ganna today he will embark on the possible mission of wearing the leader’s shirt, just like in Palermo in 2020 and in Turin in 2021, perhaps with the intention of keeping it glued to him up to the Gran Sasso (the first real mountain stands out on the horizon, covered with snow like not even at Christmas).

Absent last year to concentrate on the Tour adventure, Pippo returns to the Giro with an electric beard (Nothing can be taken for granted), a shiny leg, a sad heart over the death of the beloved family dog (greeted with a post on Instagram), above all the record of 5 time trials out of 5 torn to pieces so far in the pink race, a statistic that makes him the obligatory favorite for the race against the clock of 19,600 meters that awaits him at the gate, rivals permitting. What seems simple to you is not – he warns on the eve of the third Tour of his career – nor normal. The unexpected, as always, is around the corner: in addition to the Covid positives, forced to retire (Giulio Ciccone above all, who leaves a Trek decapitated which has changed sponsors since July: from Segafredo to Lidl), yesterday a disastrous fall in training knocked out Jan Tratnik, valuable lieutenant of Roglicinjured his knee and was quickly replaced by the new professional Thomas Gloaga graft that certainly does not strengthen the battleship Jumbo.

Tour booked by Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglicsay the most expert among the suiveurs, the two great actors who will fight for the coronation on the Imperial Forums in Rome (there is also the Swiss Stefan Kung, born a pistard like the blue, among the time trial specialists who today will compete against Ganna for the stage), with little room – it seems – for improvisation, least of all for anarchy. But the two-headed Ineos, which as usual proposes the double captain (a two-pronged attack intended as strength but also a solution that could prove to be weakness along the way), launches into the fray Geraint Thomasthe elderly son of Wales (37 years old at the end of the month) who took the Tour by surprise in 2018, faithful to the ritual of having his hair cut on the eve of departure from his wife Sara, and Tao Geoghegan Hartthe underdog who in the pandemic year 2020 raised the trophy in a Milan on the threshold of the lockdown (the edition of the exact same time as Jay Hindley, reigning champion absent, before the final time trial), the only winner of a Giro at the start (176 riders at the start, 18 World Tour teams plus four invitations).

In the caravan, waiting for the takeoff towards three weeks of emotions, you breathe the excitement of the first time yet the Giro is a 114 year old lady capable of changing her makeup every year. The unconfessed dream for 2024 is to leave Ukraine, if the situation permits. But now there is Abruzzo, between the sea and the overflow, with the uncertainty of what will come.