The FREE 2026 Giro d'Italia manager is live - How the game works and Top 5 picks

The 2026 Giro d'Italia will take place from the 8th to the 31st of May. The first Grand Tour of the season always provides spectacular footage and battles, from some of the world's best riders - this year, with Jonas Vingegaard as its headliner. CyclingUpToDate's free Giro d'Italia manager can make your next few weeks even more exciting and test your knowledge of the pro peloton to the limit. Following the 'Corsa Rosa' becomes even more exciting with the Fantasy Giro d'Italia, and we provide some insight into the game's best picks.

All riders have been assigned a value, and before the start of the race, you select 25 riders within a budget of 365 million. For each stage, you then pick 8 riders to compete for points for your team. It’s important to find the right balance between sprinters, climbers, time-trial specialists, and attackers.

Each day, the top 25 finishers of the stage earn points. The top 25 of the overall classification also earn points, but for this, all of your riders are eligible, so no lineup selection is needed.

With 25 riders to choose and a budget of €365 million, it takes some math to build the perfect team in a route that features lots of stages where breakaways can win; several mountain stages and quite a few bunch sprints added into the mix as well. Hence, we also provide some insight into which riders may have the best value for their price; and which riders may be worth putting your confidence in taking into consideration their form and status entering the race.

The most expensive rider on the list is Jonas Vingegaard. This does not come as a surprise, as the Dane is going to be the main favourite to carry the pink jersey by the time the riders reach Rome on the 31st of May.

He is the most costly rider on the list, but his value has increased exponentially after the withdrawals of João Almeida, Richard Carapaz and Mikel Landa - three riders who were amongst the strongest expected climbers on the startlist when the list of favourites was established months ago.

This means Vingegaard will have less rivals, when it comes to the overall classification, but also in the mountain stages. Less variables means less threats for Vingegaard, and more potential to win stages. The Dane is left with Giulio Pellizzari as his main rival, a rider who hasn't until today finished on the podium of a Grand Tour, and so his success of winning big throughout the three weeks is big.

An expensive purchase, but with no surprise one of the most selected in the game. Although his cost is the highest, perhaps not choosing him is the real risk - whilst if he abandons, it can turn the standings upside down overnight.

This year's sprinter field at the Giro increases the startlist quality significantly, as several climbers were left out of the race due to injuries or illnesses. The field contains the likes of Jonathan Milan, Paul Magnier, Dylan Groenewegen, Arnaud de Lie...

But perhaps the best choice would be Tobias Lund Andresen of Decathlon CMA CGM Team. It is not a 'safe' choice, as Jonathan Milan's cost is just ever-so-slightly higher. But it can be well worth it due to the Danish sprinter's versatility.

The results speak for themselves, actually. He won a stage and points classification at the Tour Down Under; won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and a stage at Tirreno-Adriatico ahead of De Lie, Philipsen, Milan... But in the classics is where he really showed his worth; finishing on the Top10 of Omloop het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne; even the brutal E3 Saxo Classic and ultimately second at Dwars door Vlaanderen. His form remains high, as he recently won the sprint for 12th spot at the Eschborn-Frankfurt, something which may fly under the radar but not easy in a route that features over 3000 meters of climbing.

Andresen's advantage is that, his climbing ability. His move to Decathlon saw him reach a never-before seen level, whilst his leadout has also consistently performed against the very best. Uphill sprints are his speciality, and he may thrive where Milan will struggle, whilst simultaneously being very competitive in the pure bunch sprints. The Maglia Ciclamino may be a big goal and a very realistic one at that.

The third choice is another sprinter: Dylan Groenewegen. It would be unfair to classify him as a versatile sprinter in the same way that Tobias Lund Andresen is, but his value is also significantly lower. At €16 million, you can select a sprinter that has been impressing all spring and is in his best form in years. His time with Unibet Rose Rockets has, in the space of months, seen a reborn Groenewegen.

After a lackluster 2025, Groenewegen's best option was to step down from the World Tour and take a big risk by joining the French team, owned by the social-media guided Bas Tietema. But this wasn't a transfer just for 'the views'. It was for results, and it has been perhaps the best possible move for both sides.

Groenewegen has won the Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana, his first race day of the season; and in the spring took three wins in six days at the Bredene Koksijde Classic, GP Jean-Pierre Monseré and finally the Tour of Bruges. The latter was the team's first ever World Tour victory, and marked an exponential change in its outlook. Unibet is now, in every aspect, a team able to contest with the big World Tour outfits when it comes to the bunch sprints. The Tour of Bruges is one of the most hotly contested sprint races of the year, and he directly beat Jasper Philipsen in the depths of the spring campaign. Not just sprinting, but the way the Dutchman has handled himself in the crosswinds this spring reveals his best form in years.

Heading into the Giro d'italia, and with a team mostly backing him up, Groenewegen is highly motivated and is a perfect contender for the flat sprint stages. Not only is his drive to win a major factor at play, but he can make history for the team, one that continues to climb up the ladder in professional cycling - perhaps motivation that can't be matched elsewhere in the Giro peloton.

With some smaller value, we find in Christian Scaroni perhaps a perfect mid-level choice. €11.5 million may be a price that is well worth for a rider who has in the past seasons showed tremendous quality in the hilly terrain and the mountains as well. With Lorenzo Fortunato skipping the Giro, the team may use last year's strategy to conquer the KOM classification, but this time around with Scaroni.

The Italian rider will chase breakaways most certainly throughout the Corsa Rosa and there are plenty opportunities for him to take a win. A quality classics rider, he is the ideal rider for the 'baroudeur' stages, the hilly days which are difficult to control. He can do the long climbs, he thrives in the short ones, he can sprint, and he has full trust from an Astana who may even place other riders to support him on these days.

Scaroni was the winner of the Classica Camp de Morvedre early in the season, and also the Tour of Oman. At the Tour of Oman he won the stage to Green Mountain, a brutal mountain-top finish; and last year he won the Giro's gruesome Alpine stage to San Valentino with almost 5000 meters of climbing. For a puncheur, Scaroni can climb incredibly well on his best day, making him a threat for virtually every non-flat stage in the Giro.

But breakaways are not his only possibility, as a rider with the quality of Scaroni can chase stage wins even if he stays in the peloton and challenges the best. Stage 8 of this year's edition into Fermo for example should see the peloton fight for the win in a finale that features a gradient of 22% in a 3-kilometer long climb. The ideal finale for a puncheur like Scaroni, who may be the ultimate opportunist.

Last on this list we have Damiano Caruso, the veteran, who shared with CyclingUpToDate earlier this winter the reasons why he decided to postpone his retirement. Age can be just a number, as the 38-year old has perhaps never looked as good as he did at last year's Giro, and his recent performances point towards a potential repetition.

Caruso was second at the 2021 Giro d'Italia and according to himself, if he had the level of his 2025 race, he might have been able to win it in the past. He finished fifth, following a race where he started purely as a domestique for Antonio Tiberi, but promptly turned into a leader after his compatriot's fall on stage 14. Caruso is a rider often praised for his knowhow in positioning, and that assures him consistency in the races where pressure often gets to the head or body of his rivals.

Like many of his generation, he is not able to maintain top form throughout all the season, but he remains a very capable rider when it comes to timing his peaks. His spring lacked the big results, which diminishes his price - of €9.1 million - and makes him a more attractive choice. For this price, there are not many GC contenders. He raced the recent Tour de Romandie in support of Lenny Martínez but his display in the final mountain stage, where he led the GC group of Martínez, Tadej Pogacar, and others, shows his form is on the rise once again only with days remaining until the Corsa Rosa.

Bahrain - Victorious have Santiago Buitrago in the lead, but the Colombian perhaps offers as many guarantees as Caruso himself. The Bahrain team have a very strong lineup for the mountains and he does not have to necessarily sacrifice himself. Caruso is still able to perform at the top at this point in his career, and may well be worth the price.