Giro d’Italia 2025 contenders: who will win the 108th edition?

Rouleur takes a look at the contenders to win the Maglia Rosa in Italy this month

Words: Tristan Rees

The 2025 Giro d’Italia is set to be a battle between the young and the old, with a 13-year age gap between the two main favourites, Primož Roglič and Juan Ayuso. The pair had a ding-dong battle in March’s Volta a Catalunya, taking three stages between them, two of which they battled for in a two-man sprint against one another. The 35-year-old Roglič got the better of the 22-year-old Ayuso at the end of the week-long race, but as they line up in Albania on Friday, May 9, looking ahead to 21 stages, they both know a Grand Tour is an entirely different prospect.

Roglič is one of the standout Grand Tour riders of the last decade, taking four Vuelta a España crowns, one Tour de France podium and a Giro win in 2023, whereas Ayuso is a young pretender looking to break into cycling’s Big Four (Roglič, Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel). However, both will have to be cautious of their other rivals, as proved by Roglič’s experience in 2019 when he focused on Vincenzo Nibali only for Richard Carapaz to steal a march and win the maglia rosa. Carapaz will be on the start line again on Friday, as will the Yates twins, Adam and Simon, and one of cycling’s great journeymen, Mikel Landa.

These are not the only contenders. With last year’s runaway winner Tadej Pogačar, his long-time rival Jonas Vingegaard, and Remco Evenepoel all focusing on the Tour, the GC battle is wide open, and there are a host of other potential contenders and dark horses for the Giro, which starts in Albania for the first time in its history on Friday. With two time trials, a number of mountainous days in the Apennines and Alps, and a Tuscan gravel stage on the Giro route, there are plenty of pitfalls and challenges facing all of them on the road to Rome.

Giro d'Italia 2025 contenders

Primož Roglič

Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) starts as the favourite for the Giro due to his experience, time trial superiority and his previous success at Grand Tours. The 2023 winner knows his way around stage racing, having won almost every multi-day race on the WorldTour calendar at some point in his career. His most recent triumph at Catalunya proves he has still got it despite his advancing years and if he were to again claim another GC win at this year’s Giro, he would become the oldest winner in its history (he is already fifth on the list after his win two years ago when he was 33 years and 211 days old).

Roglič’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team is one of the strongest in the race with former winner Jai Hindley (in 2022) and podium finisher Dani Martínez (in 2024) among their ranks.

Also, the time trials will play into his hands as a former Olympic champion. In fact, it was a time trial in 2023 which took him to his maiden pink jersey when he overturned Geraint Thomas’s GC lead on the penultimate day to win the overall by 14 seconds and although that was a mountain time trial, Roglič is equally strong on the flat and lumpy terrain, which feature at this year’s race.

Juan Ayuso

Roglič’s principal rival is Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who makes his debut at the Giro after a number of impressive years in the pro ranks. He may only be 22 years old, but he already has a Grand Tour podium to his name from the 2022 Vuelta, showing he has the talent and guile to challenge at three-week races.

Ayuso has been on stellar form this season with one-day wins at the Trofeo Laigueglia and Faun Drôme Classic in March, as well as a GC and stage win at the Tirreno-Adriatico in the same month. Ayuso will be confident that Roglič will not be able to make many gains on him in the time trials, as shown by his impressive second place behind specialist Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) at the opening day time trial at Tirreno. He also has the match of Roglič’s uphill kick to the line, as proved by his performances at Catalunya. However, he will have to be wary of the Slovenian’s aggression, like when Roglič stole a march on the Spaniard on a final day raid in Catalunya, taking the stage and the overall honours.

Adam Yates

UAE Team Emirates-XRG start the race with a squad to match Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s. Although they don’t have a previous winner on their roster like the German team, their consistent superdomestique, Adam Yates, is a seasoned Grand Tour rider with a Tour podium to his name from 2023. He will likely be in the service of Ayuso, but UAE will want to keep him high up on GC so that he can be used as a pawn, or if his team leader were to come into difficulty, then he could step in and get a top result.

Yates has a metronomic climbing style where he can continuously tick off uphill kilometres at a high tempo while other riders fall off the pace. He did so in the aid of Tadej Pogačar at the Tour in recent years and will be doing the same for Ayuso in Albania and Italy. But he will have one eye on making sure he doesn’t completely ease up after his final turn so that he can remain up there on GC. Despite not having quite as devastating a time trial as his team-mate or Roglič, Yates is pretty handy against the clock and won’t be expected to lose loads of time.

Mikel Landa

One man who will be trying to limit his losses in the two time trials is Soudal–Quick–Step’s Mikel Landa, a two-time podium finisher at the Giro. At 35 years old, the Spaniard is entering the twilight of a long career, much of which was spent as a mountain domestique to some of the sport’s most successful riders, but he has had his own chances for glory, and at the Giro, he will be the outright leader of his team.

A recent fourth place at Catalunya was a solid result for a rider who tends to peak strongly for his target races, so he will be hoping that his performances in northeast Spain were a good sign for things to come in Italy. In order to compete, he will have to find time on his rivals in the mountains, which will be a hard task considering how strong Roglič and Ayuso are. However, both of them are prone to having off-days or lapses in concentration, and Landa may be the perfect rider to pounce upon a chance that presents itself.

Richard Carapaz

Like Landa, another canny operator — perhaps the canniest of them all — is Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost). For a rider who often starts as somewhat of an outsider for most races, the Ecuadorian has a remarkable palmarès: a Giro d’Italia overall win, Olympic Games road race, podium finishes at the Vuelta and Tour, stages in all three Grand Tours and the polka-dot jersey at last year’s Tour to name a few of his career highlights.

Carapaz is a born racer — he has got a knack of finding the right move to take him to victory and the grit to see it out. His victory at the Giro in 2019 was testament to this racing nous, where he stole a march on pre-race favourites Roglič and Nibali. Again, like Landa, he will struggle to hold pace in the time trials, so will look to the Alps for success — or, knowing what he races like, perhaps earlier in the Apennines. He knows how to get into winning positions. There’s a reason he has worn all three leaders’ jerseys of the Grand Tours. At the end of three weeks of racing at the Giro, he would like to have the pink one on his shoulders in Rome.

Simon Yates

Simon Yates will lead the GC challenge for Visma-Lease a Bike, who have not enjoyed their usual success so far in 2025. Unlike his twin brother, Adam, Simon has not been riding in the aid of others as a domestique for the past few seasons but on his previous team Jayco Alula, his results were becoming a little stagnant and an offseason move to the Dutch super team Visma may be a good opportunity for 2018 Vuelta winner to revive his individual GC ambitions.

He will have to make the most of his chance at the Giro because, come the Tour in July, he will undoubtedly be in the service of Jonas Vingegaard. The way the 2025 Giro route is laid out will bring back some memories of some of the most eventful weeks of the Brit’s career when for two-and-half weeks he was on stellar form at the 2018 Giro, leading the GC after a series of impressive climbing results only to completely blow up on the Colle delle Finestre, which features on stage 20 of this year’s race. He will hope to banish all the demons of that day, which saw compatriot Chris Froome ride away to victory.

Other contenders

A dark horse for a top-five finish is Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), who stormed to overall victory at the recent Tour of the Alps. Another rider on form at that race was Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), who followed it up with a second-place finish behind Pogačar at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Another strong Ardennes performer was Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) who could be at the Giro to target GC or stage wins. Likewise, Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) may look to try and stay in GC before readjusting to target stages if he falls back, although the Canadian has not shown the same form so far this season as in previous years.

As previously mentioned, Jai Hindley and Dani Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) could feature high up on GC despite working for their leader Roglič. Many fans would be delighted to see 2021 winner Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) back in shape after a couple of difficult years following a horrific crash, although another crash earlier this year will have hampered his preparation. His team-mate Thymen Arensman is in strong shape, as proved by his Tour of the Alps performances in April.

Climbers David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious), and Team Picnic PostNL pair Max Poole and Romain Bardet (the latter in his last Grand Tour before retirement) will hope to be up in contention for a GC result or to nab a stage win.

Outside the GC, there are a number of exciting prospects on the startline, including Classics men Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), puncheurs Paul Magnier and Ethan Hayter (Soudal–Quick-Step), as well as stage hunters like Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech), Luke Plapp (Team Jayco Alula) and Wout Poels (XDS Astana Team), who has been on impressive form at the Tour of Turkey recently.

The sprinters Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) will be fighting it out on the flat finishes, but expect Van Aert, Pedersen and Magnier to try and compete too.