ANALYSIS - Giro d’Italia 2026’s biggest losers: Giulio Pellizzari, Jonathan Milan and the riders exposed by Jonas Vingegaard’s dominance

Jonas Vingegaard will leave the 2026 Giro d’Italia as the defining figure of the race. Five stage wins, the maglia rosa and a near-certain Grand Tour Triple Crown have turned the Dane’s Giro debut into a statement performance.

Behind him, the race also produced a clear group of winners. Paul Magnier dominated the points battle with three stage victories and the maglia ciclamino. Jhonatan Narvaez again showed his range with three stage wins of his own. Afonso Eulalio confirmed his breakthrough with nine days in pink and the young rider classification.

But a Grand Tour also exposes weakness. Over three weeks, expectations collapse in public. General classification plans fall apart. Sprint leaders lose their authority. Young riders discover how quickly a race can turn when health, pressure and fatigue all arrive at once.

By that measure, these were the five biggest losers of the 2026 Giro d’Italia.

Enric Mas arrived at the Giro d’Italia with a clear aim. The Movistar Team leader was making his first appearance in the race and had publicly targeted the general classification podium before the start.

That ambition was gone almost as soon as the first major mountain test arrived. On the Blockhaus, Mas lost contact with the podium battle and also fell away from any realistic top-10 challenge. For a rider starting as Movistar’s main GC hope, it was a damaging start that shaped the rest of his race.

Even Eusebio Unzue later described the performance as a “fail”, a blunt assessment that matched the reality of Mas’ Giro. Once the GC had slipped away, only a stage win could rescue his race.

His best chance came on Stage 11, when he looked closer to his best level. Mas made the break, attacked repeatedly and eventually reduced the fight for the stage to a duel with Jhonatan Narvaez. The problem was the finish. Narvaez beat him in the sprint and Mas had to settle for second.

That was as close as he came. In the final week, he was no longer among the strongest breakaway climbers, and at times Einer Rubio looked the more dangerous Movistar option in the mountains. Mas leaves the Giro without a GC result, without a stage win and with his victory drought still stretching back to the 2022 Giro dell’Emilia.

Jonathan Milan’s Giro cannot be judged by the GC. It must be judged against his own sprinting standards, and against the rider who took control of the fast finishes.

Milan started the race as the major sprint favourite. With Lidl-Trek behind him and several stages suited to his power, the expectation was simple: wins, ciclamino contention and confirmation that he remained the reference point in Giro bunch sprints. Paul Magnier took that role instead.

The Soudal - Quick-Step sprinter won three stages and the points classification, while Milan repeatedly found himself close but not close enough. Second, third, fourth. The Italian was present in the finals, but he did not impose himself.

That is what makes his Giro disappointing. It was not a race where the opportunities disappeared. Milan had the chances. Magnier was faster, sharper and more decisive. Even a late win in Rome would only have softened the verdict. Milan did not come to this Giro to collect a consolation stage. He came to dominate the sprint field. Magnier left with that authority.

Giulio Pellizzari’s race may be the most frustrating of all, because the opening phase suggested something far bigger. The young Italian arrived with major expectations after winning the Tour of the Alps, where he had also taken two stage victories. On the Blockhaus, he briefly looked like the rider most capable of troubling Vingegaard, finishing fourth and being the last man to resist before the Dane’s decisive move. That image did not become the story of his Giro.

Stomach problems soon disrupted his race and his level never fully returned. Pellizzari stayed inside the top 10 until Stage 15, which kept the possibility of a respectable GC result alive, but the third week exposed the damage. Each mountain stage brought another time loss. First he slipped out of the top 10, then the top 15, and eventually even the top 20.

The stage-hunting route did not rescue him either. Pellizzari never found the performance that could replace the lost GC campaign with a clear consolation prize.

His team still had success through Jai Hindley, who reached the podium for Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe. That only sharpened the contrast. Pellizzari entered the race as one of the most talked-about challengers behind Vingegaard. He left it as one of the riders most clearly beaten by the demands of three weeks.

Ben O’Connor’s Giro was less dramatic, but no less disappointing. After his strong 2024 Vuelta a Espana, the Australian was still searching for the level that had put him among the leading Grand Tour riders. The Giro looked like the right race to show it. Behind Vingegaard, the podium and top-five battle was open enough for a rider of his profile. Instead, O’Connor spent too much of the race surviving rather than shaping it.

He remained relatively well placed through the first two weeks, but rarely looked like a rider ready to attack the podium. While Felix Gall, Jai Hindley, Derek Gee-West and Afonso Eulalio all produced clear mountain performances, O’Connor’s race became increasingly defensive.

The third week ended his top-10 hopes. Fatigue accumulated, the gaps grew, and he slid to 16th overall. For a rider whose team needed a major GC result, that was a long way from the target.

The final loser is not a rider. It is the route itself. Vingegaard’s superiority would have been hard to break on almost any parcours, but the 2026 Giro rarely created the sense of chaos and attrition that has historically defined the race. There were fewer of the long, brutal mountain stages that make the Giro feel different from the Tour de France. The route often leaned towards shorter, more controlled racing, which suited a dominant team like Visma | Lease a Bike.

Visma controlled the key days with impressive calm. Once Vingegaard had the race in hand, there were limited opportunities for rivals to launch the kind of long-range attacks that might have forced a different dynamic.

The time trial balance also invites debate. One 42-kilometre individual time trial was a significant test, but still only one test against the clock in a three-week Grand Tour. Vingegaard lost more than a minute to Thymen Arensman there. A second time trial could have changed the pressure around the podium battle, even if it may not have changed the winner.

The 2026 Giro produced a dominant champion and several memorable individual performances. It did not always produce the uncertainty, brutality and tactical disorder that many fans expect from the Corsa Rosa.

Vingegaard leaves Rome with the race. Magnier, Narvaez and Eulalio leave with major gains. Mas, Milan, Pellizzari and O’Connor leave with very different questions.