"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. She noted: 'I'm always curious about the kind of research famous people do before they make that cold call to offer their support. The ones I have remained in relationship with are those who, like Blake, really did their homework.' Ecuador's Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) has a Giro overall title and 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.

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, reading comprehension tips the Giro heads back across the Adriatic to Lecce before snaking its way up the country. 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.

Her mother, played by actor Kenan Thompson, then emerged from the changing room and they got into a debate with the shop assistant, with Blake continuing in the same pseduo accent: 'This my mom. You better stop tryna get up in her goody snack.' 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.

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) 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. 'I don't know the Blake Lively of the red carpet.

Or the Met Gala. I never watched Gossip Girl,' wrote Ifill. 'The Blake Lively I know is a philanthropist and a student of our country's most intractable problems. She and her husband Ryan Reynolds reached out in 2019 to make a contribution to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.' All of the parties dispute the allegations against them, but Blake has found herself under intense scrutiny for everything from 'mean girl' behaviour to feuds with other co-stars and her wedding to Ryan Reynolds on a former slave plantation in South Carolina - a move that has repeatedly attracted fierce criticism and for which Reynolds subsequently apologised.

It is one of America's oldest working plantations. In the 19th century it was owned by Henry and John Horlbeck who were in the brick business, building many of the public spaces in downtown Charleston using brick from the plantation. 'We decided one night to go to the arcade where they were and I put bronzer all over myself and a Scary Spice 'fro so I think they'd think I was a Black girl, so I could stalk them and my friend dressed up as this goth girl and we literally sat outside their houses,' she shared.