DISCUSSION | Who were the biggest disappointments of the Giro?

The Giro d’Italia 2025 has come to an end, and it was one for the ages. From Mads Pedersen incontestable domination to Wout van Aert’s epic win in the sterrato stage, from Roglic and Ayuso’s crashes and abandons to Isaac del Toro’s reign and Simon Yates’ final win.

The race has delivered plenty of stunning moments, about whom we have previously talked about and would like to know your opinion regarding the most memorable one.

Some riders have performed worse than expected, unable to live up to the expectations that had been placed on them. Others didn’t come with much pressure but still failed to deliver good results, while others were completely invisible throughout the whole race.

Today we are going to focus on the biggest disappointments of this Giro. As usual in our discussion posts, we have asked some of our writers to know who they believe have been the biggest disappointments of this Giro d’Italia.

I should start with the 2 main favourites: Primoz Roglic and Juan Ayuso. They were in theory the 2 best prepared cyclists for the Giro and the 2 main favourites for the overall win. Very underwhelming performances (despite Ayuso actually winning a stage) that failed to live up to the hype (didn't even get to the high mountain stages).

The teams: we've had 23 teams in the race, from which only 11 have won stages. While some of these teams were often contesting the GC, like Israel, Bahrain, Movistar and Tudor, there were others that were pretty much non-existent in the race.

Teams like Arkea, Cofidis, Groupama, Intermarché, Soudal, Picnic, Polti and VF Bardiani. The italian teams mainly tried to get some TV time via breakaways as usual, but I think it's time to reconsider the quality of teams that receive the wildcard here.

To be more specific, the french teams / cyclists: They were pretty much non-existent in the race as well. The only one that is worth mentioning is Nicolas Prodhomme, who actually had a stand-out victory that could launch his career. Riders like Bardet, Gaudu or Magnier were quite underwhelming.

Another disappointment were the secondary classifications, which were not contested at all. I felt like Mads Pedersen and Lorenzo Fortunato were the only candidates for the points and mountain classifications and there was no-one else interested in going for them. Special jerseys should be something prestigious, but having them pretty much uncontested takes off some of its value in my opinion

In my opinion, the main disappointments have been:

The gravel stage. It puts men from the overall out due to crashes or mechanical breakdowns, in a race that is decided in the mountains.

Mikel Landa's fall.

Multiple crashes by Roglic.

The design of the route up to the ninth day of competition.

Long and super boring transition stages.

UAE tactics.

Juan Ayuso.

Nairo Quintana.

Lack of ambition from the smaller teams.

Pidcock... Has anyone seen him?

Question to the UCI: why have they increased the number of teams in the 3-week races?

Richard Carapaz and Isaac del Toro on Finestre...

Lack of people on the streets watching the race on some stages.

Obviously the crashes affecting the race. Although I must say with full honesty, the race might have been more exciting like this spectacle and drama wise. New faces at the front, new scenarios, and nowhere near the scenarios I believed we'd see.

Michael Storer gave me very high expectations after what was an absolutely insane Tour of the Alps performance. Of course, coming out of the Giro with a Top10 is not a bad result (and he did crash a few times which makes a difference), but I am sad not to have seen a monster Storer climbing performance whilst he did seem strong throughout the whole race.

Tom Pidcock. I will not go too hard on him, he was not absent from the race as I read a lot. He was close to winning a stage in week 1, then he crashed on the gravel day which was his prime objective...

Going for GC, for experience sake, is a plan. Short-term not the best one, obviously, because he cast himself out of breakaways in which he could've won a stage. But he also came into the race without an altitude camp of climbing preparation, which means he would never finish inside the Top10.

Personally, I cannot really include Roglic and Ayuso in the disappointment section. They were decimated by crashes, especially in the case of the Slovenian, and they were ultimately forced to abandon. It is true none of them looked in best shape during the first two weeks, but judging their performance as disappointing would be unfair.

The biggest disappointment for me was Tom Pidcock. It is true what Rúben says that he wasn’t actually absent from the race, and he got three top 5. But when we are talking about a rider such as Pidcock, the expectations are just much higher than what he accomplished.

The British has never excelled in GCs of Grand Tours, he is not a pure climber and he shows his best version when he is free from GC aspirations and can exclusively focus on fighting for stage wins. On top of that, he recently admitted that he didn’t do an altitude camp before the Giro, plus noting that all of his rivals had a better preparation with fewer racing days.

So…why did he and the team still decide to race the way he did? He got in zero breakaways and was barely seen in the group of favourites, being the first to get dropped almost every time.

Q36.5 really need to reevaluate the strategy and the way they approach the Vuelta a España in August. They were granted not one but two Grand Tours wildcards in a pretty questionable way, and so far, the first test has been pitiful.

Pidcock came as the big star but was invisible, while Moschetti only got a nice result on the last day finishing third, despite showing a great shape in the race prior to the Giro. The rest of the team barely showed up, going into some of the 40-rider breaks of the last week but always dropping too early.

The whole Astana was superb, but Wout Poels negatively surprised me because I definitely expected to see him much more active than what he was. He only got into one break and was pretty much invisible the rest of the race. Maybe I had too high expectations about him.

I also expected more from Michael Storer, his performance at the Tour of the Alps in late April showed he had terrific legs and his shape was arguably the best he has even had. But during the Giro he never showed that same level again, he was usually struggling at the back of the group of favourites and barely maintained his place in the top 10. He was one of my dark horses for the podium but he was very far from that.

The whole Intermarché - Wanty team rode a deplorable Giro, they were never protagonists. On the one hand, Gerben Thijssen was the man for the sprints but couldn’t even finish inside the top 10 once. On the other hand, Louis Meintjes was the team leader for the mountains, only having a bit of an impact on stage 19 and never looking like a contender for the stage.

They are still holding a comfortable lead of around 1500 points over relegation, but they shouldn’t slack off. Astana is flying, while Picnic and Cofidis have obtained around 500 more points than Intermarché so far this year and will most likely step on the gas during the second half of the season.

David Gaudu was also nowhere to be seen. It is true he tried his luck in a few breaks but he was almost always the first rider to get dropped, something surprising considering his original goal was to fight for the GC. He crashed and that definitely took a toll, but knowing his past accomplishments and the fact he didn’t abandon, much more from him was expected.

Nairo Quintana has long past his prime, but as a good climber and coming as a support for Einer Rubio, I also expected much more from him. Instead, he went unnoticed the whole race, not having presence in the breaks and not staying for long in peloton. His biggest highlight was his greeting to the Pope…