"The goal is clearly to fight for a stage win" - With no Tom Pidcock, Q36.5 turn towards Fabio Christen and co at Giro d'Italia 2026

With Tom Pidcock absent from the start list, Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team head into the 2026 Giro d’Italia with a very different identity to the one many expected earlier in the season.

Rather than building around a single headline rider or general classification ambition, the Swiss outfit appear ready to embrace a far more open and aggressive approach centred around stage hunting, opportunistic racing and selective finishes suited to riders like Fabio Christen.

The 23-year-old Swiss rider will make his Giro debut in Bulgaria and arrives at the race viewing the three weeks as a major opportunity.

“My first Giro and second Grand Tour overall,” Christen said in a pre-race team release. “It’s obviously something very special and the excitement is huge. I’m happy to be here and ready to take the race day by day, looking for opportunities that suit my characteristics.”

Christen also openly acknowledged the tactical reality surrounding the team heading into the Giro. “We don’t really have a clear GC leader, so there will be a lot of freedom to target stages that suit us and fight for results.”

That approach mirrors a broader pattern emerging across several teams entering this year’s race. With Jonas Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike arriving as overwhelming favourites for the Maglia Rosa after the withdrawals of Joao Almeida, Richard Carapaz and Mikel Landa, many squads are instead focusing on stage victories and aggressive racing.

For Q36.5, that philosophy appears particularly suited to both their roster and the nature of the 2026 Giro route.

The race features a large number of explosive and selective stages rather than only pure summit finishes, something that fits Christen’s developing rider profile. “I can target reduced sprints,” he explained.

That detail could prove significant over the coming weeks. Christen, the older brother of Jan Christen, who will also race this year’s Giro with UAE Team Emirates - XRG, has steadily developed into one of the more interesting punchy stage racers in the peloton, capable of surviving hard terrain and still producing a fast finish from smaller groups.

The Giro route contains multiple stages that could reward exactly that type of rider, especially in the medium mountain terrain and aggressive transitional days expected throughout the opening two weeks.

Q36.5’s ambitions for the race were also laid out clearly by Christen. “For us the goal at the Giro is clearly to fight for a stage win,” he said. “Every day is a chance. With Matteo we have a rider for the bunch sprints, I can target reduced sprints, and we also have strong climbers who can go for top ten results in the mountains.”

That combination gives the team several tactical routes into the race rather than forcing them into a single strategy. Without Pidcock, the spotlight naturally shifts elsewhere. But rather than arriving weakened or directionless, Q36.5 instead look set to become one of the more unpredictable and aggressive teams in the race.

And for Fabio Christen, the Giro now offers the biggest opportunity of his career so far to prove he can turn that freedom into results.