Very close to the Danube, the river that crosses Budapest, the peloton of 176 riders will gather in the aptly named "Square of Heroes".

Who will be the first of them on May 29 in front of the Verona arena at the end of the 3,445 kilometers of a route which will continue on Monday in Italy via Sicily, then the ascent of the peninsula?

The new regents of the big tours, the Slovenians Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic, are lacking but a few names are coming back for the pink jersey.

Winner in 2019 and Olympic champion two years later, Richard Carapaz is installed as the first favorite.

Giro 2022: the route of the 105th edition Valentin RAKOVSKY AFP

Behind the Ecuadorian, the Portuguese Joao Almeida, inducted leader in the Pogacar team, shares the odds with the Briton Simon Yates, elusive, the Spaniard Mikel Landa, eternally unlucky so far, the Frenchman Romain Bardet, constant and successful after his victorious Tour of the Alps.

And a few others (Dumoulin, MA Lopez, Hindley, Kelderman, Carthy...) as this 105th edition seems open to hypotheses until the ultimate time trial.

Unpredictable and inexhaustible

Last year, to everyone's surprise, the Italian Damiano Caruso worried the Colombian Egan Bernal in the third week.

Caruso has turned this time to the Tour de France (like Filippo Ganna) and Italian cycling, deprived of its big names of the present, relies on climber Giulio Ciccone and a historical figure, Vincenzo Nibali (37) , launched towards what looks very much like a farewell tour to the race that he has left his mark on (two victories, six podiums since 2010).

The Italian Vincenzo Nibali on May 26, 2013 in Brescia after the first of his two victories in the final classification of the Giro.

At 37, the "Shark of Messina" is launched this season in what looks very much like a farewell tour LUK BENIES AFP / Archives

Nibali, who teams up with Colombian climber Miguel Angel Lopez, knows everything about the Giro, its sometimes extreme weather, its pitfalls, its overflowing and knowledgeable audience, its surprises too.

Because the Tour of Italy retains the characteristic of remaining unpredictable, "an inexhaustible fable" in the words of journalist-writer Philippe Brunel, "an incandescent hymn to life that speaks to us of Italy, of the people we loved and perhaps also a little of ourselves".

For the time being, the peloton is preparing for an unprecedented Grand Départ (the 14th given abroad), planned for the first time for 2020 and postponed due to the pandemic.

With the Dutch solar rider Mathieu van der Poel to ignite the Hungarian stay and thwart the plans of the sprinters (Ewan, Cavendish, Démare, Gaviria, Bauhaus, Nizzolo) before the riders of the general classification take position from the time trial of the second step.

An Ineos preserve

"It's a race that I love, perhaps my favorite race," says Carapaz, whose qualities of regularity and solidity work wonders in May.

The Olympic champion was invested by the Ineos team which has made the Giro a preserve since 2018. Three victories in four editions and the recruitment of the missing winner (Carapaz 2019) a few months after its success.

Richard Carapaz, then with Movistar, on May 30, 2019 during the 18th stage of the Giro.

He won the Tour of Italy that year, "a race that I love", confides the first Ecuadorian to have won one of the three great tours, today a rider with Ineos-Grenadiers Luk BENIES AFP / Archives

If the teams generally have a lower density than in the Tour de France, hence a more open scenario, Carapaz has a solid entourage with the neo-French Pavel Sivakov and the Australian Richie Porte, one of the veterans of the peloton (37 years old).

This Tour of Italy mixes generations, from the Spanish dean Alejandro Valverde (42) to the Eritrean revelation Biniam Girmay (22), from the explosive British sprinter Mark Cavendish (soon to be 37) to the Dutch promise Thymen Arensman (22 years).

He confronts them with the test of the road, two time trials of a distance limited to only 26.6 kilometers, legendary mountains (Blockhaus, Mortirolo, Pordoi, Fedaia), arrivals for punchers.

In a word racing.

© 2022 AFP