Young Spaniard Juan Ayuso leads the UAE Team Emirates challenge in the absence of Pogacar having won the week-long Tirreno-Adriatico this season and going toe-to-toe with Roglic in a fierce battle in Catalunya. Albania is hosting a Grand Tour for the first time with the first of three stages in the Balkan country being Saturday's hilly 160 km stage from Durazzo to Tirana before Sunday's short time trial around Tirana. After a third stage featuring the race's first climb to 1,000 metres, the Giro heads back across the Adriatic to Lecce before snaking its way up the country.

Ecuador's Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) has a Giro overall title and after school tutoring programs near me Olympic road gold on his palmares while Colombian Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) has looked close to the form that took him to the Giro title in 2021. Backed by a strong Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team, including 2022 champion Jai Hindley of Australia, four-time Vuelta a Espana winner Roglic could surpass the record of Fiorenzo Magni who won the Giro, aged 34 and 180 days, in 1955.

Roglic began the season in fine fashion by winning the Tour of Catalunya but with Hindley and also 2024 runner-up Dani Martinez in their starting list, Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe boast a three-pronged General Classification (GC) attack. "Between myself and Juan I think we should be able to have a good crack on the general classification and try to defend the title, and I'm looking forward to getting started in what I hope will be a very competitive three weeks," Yates said.

The 108th edition of the race contains 52,000 metres of climbing - 10,000 more than last year - with two huge climbing days ahead of the Rome climax. (Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)