Racing

Forza EF Education-EasyPost!

It’s time for Italy’s beautiful grand tour

May 3, 2022

Hugh Carthy, Magnus Cort, Jonathan Caicedo, Diego Camargo, Julius van den Berg, Merhawi Kudus, Owain Doull, and Simon Carr are honoured to race this year’s Giro d’Italia.

For the next three weeks, they will sprint into the corners of piazzas, break away along the Mediterranean coast, and climb great cols between walls of snow, as they stamp their mark on the race and try to be remembered alongside the great Italian champions from 50, 60, or 100 years ago. A victory in the Dolomites or the Italian Alps might not make the evening news in many countries except Italy, where the beauty of those mountains will always be celebrated as a national triumph, but for our riders, who grew up watching the three-week Italian race, the Giro’s pink leader’s shirt, the maglia rosa, is as prized as the Tour’s maillot jaune. For as long as they have been riding bikes, they have dreamed of leaving their rivals behind and riding into the clouds on one of the Giro’s famous climbs. A proud nation might remember them forever. Up and down the Italian peninsula, streets are named after the Giro’s champions.

“The Italian people have passion for this race,” says EF Education-EasyPost sport director Juanma Garate. “There are pink flags everywhere during the Giro. You can just feel that the race is important here. There is a warmth to Italian culture. They decorate their houses with pink flowers and put pink bikes on roundabouts. It is super special to be in Italy during the Giro.”

"I am really looking forward to seeing what we can do during the next three weeks. This style of racing suits us."

–Juanma Garate

EF Education-EasyPost captain Hugh Carthy agrees.

“What I love about the Giro is the fans,” he says. “The race celebrates the history and the culture in Italy of cycling. Those are all big things that make it a special race.”

With over 50,000 metres of climbing on this year’s route, the 2022 Giro will be one of the hardest in years. After the start in Hungary, which will host the first three stages, the Giro will return home to Sicily to climb Mount Etna. From there, the race course is relentless. For every Passo del Mortirolo, Passo San Pellegrino, or other iconic passo, there are dozens of smaller climbs on the road to the final day’s TT in Verona. Every stage of this year’s Giro promises to be exciting and hard. It should be a very open race, which will reward opportunists.

EF Education-EasyPost director Juanma Garate is very optimistic.

“We had an unlucky start to the season with a lot of riders out with illness and then two big crashes in Romandie and Liège-Bastogne-Liège,” he says, “but I think that right now we are past the inflection point. I am really looking forward to seeing what we can do during the next three weeks. This style of racing suits us.”

Hugh Carthy will be our team’s GC leader. He is excited to go on the attack.

“I’m starting off with the ambitions to go for the GC,” he says. “There were some doubts earlier this year with the health and fitness, but I feel good now and I’m ready to get going.”

His teammates will join him. This Giro, we’re going on the offensive.

“We’ve got Magnus Cort Nielsen. He is a winner,” Juanma Garate says. “It will be the first race for him after his crash where he broke his collarbone, but every time he pins a number on his back, he wants to compete. I expect him to struggle a little bit in the first part of the Giro, but then he is going to be ready for a victory. There will also be opportunities to send guys like Simon Carr and Jonathan Caciedo up the road.”

Look forward to three weeks of thrilling racing. Forza EF Education-EasyPost!

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