Giro d’Italia organizers deal wild cards, two teams to ride Grand Tour for the first time

The organizers of the 107th Giro d’Italia, which will be held this year in May, specifically on the fourth and twenty-sixth of May 2024, have allocated wild cards to teams that do not have the status of worldtour elite teams but wish to compete in Grand Tour events (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espaňa).

The team Israel – Premier Tech, which is in first place among the teams of the so-called pro-continental group, was automatically given a “free pass”. In addition, the rider of this team, twenty-seven-year-old Briton Stevie Willliams, won the opening stage race of the season – the Australian six-stage Tour Down Under. It was the first time that the Israel – Premier Tech stable won a stage race in the WorldTour of road cycling.

Meanwhile, Israel – Premier Tech won’t be among the outsiders at the Giro d’Italia at all, as two very good German sprinters, Pascal Ackermann and Rick Zabel, are likely to appear in its colours in the race that ends in Rome.

In addition, the Israeli team has at least two very good breakaway riders – Belgian Dylan Teuns and especially Canadian Michael Woods. The thirty-nine-year-old from Toronto won a stage in the Tour de France last year and is a great fighter and a master of breakaways.

Thanks to the rankings of the pro continental teams, Lotto-Dsmy, a successful Belgian outfit in both men’s and women’s cycling, was to be the next team in line. However, as they are concentrating on other, mainly women’s cycling events this year, they decided to turn down a wildcard for Italy’s best stage race.

This gave RCS Sports organisers the space to allocate two wild cards to teams that have not ridden any major Grand Tour event to date.

Tudor Pro Cycling Team was given a wild card for the Giro d’Italia

Surprisingly, the Swiss continental team Tudor Pro Cycling Team, whose most famous face is probably Swiss time trialist Tom Bohli, was given a wild card for the Giro d’Italia.

So far, he has more success as a track cyclist, and the Swiss Tudor Pro Cycling Team has raced in both track and road World Cup events. Along with him, the Italian team Polti – Kometa plus will ride a Grand Tour stage race for the first time, with young Italian cyclists, but Ecuadorian Gomez and a number of Spanish, mostly junior riders are also getting their chance in the overall.

The Italian pro-continental team Bardini CSF also got a wild card, not surprisingly this time. This season the exact name of the VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. The star of this stable is Ricardo Lucca, who already in January won one single stage challenge after another in Mallorca.

The wild cards for the Giro d’Italia, which takes place in May this year, have been dealt! But the main favourites will be different riders, in my opinion, especially the winners of the last three editions – Colombian Egan Bernal, Australian Jay Hindley and Slovenian Primož Roglič.

Source: CyclingNews