The Best Giro d'Italia 2023 Sprinters

Eschborn-Frankfurt recently happened on May the 1rst and illustrated to the world of cycling that cliche sprinter races are no longer guaranteed to be cliche sprint races. In this world of modern cycling, breaks happen earlier and earlier and the work and effort of long races can be sustained at high levels through proper nutrition.

Just think of Milan San Remo, a famous cycling Monument, that used to be a nailed on sprinter's bunch finish. This is no longer the case, with instead the race being often decided from a breakaway over the Poggio.

Given such changes in tactics we feel teams are smartening up, and not wasting space on their roster for sprinters if it doesn't make sense or they'll simply be ending up over the time limit (OTL'ing) on certain stages.

This definitely shows in the Giro d'Italia's 2023 team rosters. There's almost no sprinters given the aggressive climbs scattered throughout the Giro. Most of the true sprinters wouldn't be able to complete some of the Giro stages in time and hence on true general classification contender teams (think INEOS, Jumbo and Soudal-Quickstep) are left off the startlist.

Sprinters

So who are we left with? There's still a few sprinters who will survive the first week before the hardest climbs. We're looking at Cavendish who while probably dropping at stage seven or so, will still have a good shot at three or four stages in the preceding days. Cavendish's form however has looked abysmal most days in the races leading up to the Giro. We believe, hopefully, he's trying to peak for the Tour de France and breaking Merckx win record, but we'll see.

Otherwise you have Pedersen (who should clean the points jersey), Gaviria, Groves, and Menten. Each have good chances to take different stages in their own right and may well be worth placing an over/under bet on stage wins down.

You also have Consonni, Ackermann and Kanter - but Consonni and Ackermann haven't really shown up this season and Kanter will probably be a lead out man for Gaviria so we're not recommending them that highly.

Stages

Which stages might they win on? Let's pull from our stage by stage breakdown

Stages two, three, five and six all seem like bolt on sprint finishes. Stage three potentially less so with the slight kicker of a climb before the finish. If the general classification (GC) contenders want to make an early statement they may use stage three to do so with a hard team pull over the climb.

If any of the sprinters survive stage seven (and a lot will, we just don't think Cavendish will) then stages 10, 11, 14, 17, and of course 21 (the final stage) all seem like potential sprint finishes.