"Richard Has Returned To The Race He Won, And He Has Returned With A Climbing Engine The Team Has Not Seen In Three Years" — EF Education-EasyPost Names Eight-Rider Giro d'Italia 2026 Squad Around Carapaz's Comeback Tilt And Cepeda's Mountain Co-Card, Bissegger The Stage 1 Nessebar TT Card
Saturday evening, Boulder. Six days before the Sofia Grande Partenza, EF Education-EasyPost have published their eight-rider 2026 Giro d'Italia squad: Richard Carapaz as the protected GC leader on a comeback tilt at the race he won in 2019, Jefferson Cepeda as the second mountain card, Stefan Bissegger as the Stage 1 Nessebar 16.4km individual time trial card, with Andrea Piccolo, Sean Quinn, Mikkel Honore, Esteban Chaves and Marijn van den Berg filling out the support cast. The brief written into the team's race-strategy document, signed by sport director Charly Wegelius this afternoon, is the most ambitious EF have committed to since the 2023 Giro: top-eight GC, two stage wins, the maglia azzurra mountains classification priced at 11/2 a realistic Cepeda secondary target.
Carapaz's leadership is the headline. The 32-year-old Ecuadorian, the 2019 Giro winner and the 2020 Vuelta runner-up, has not finished inside the top ten of a grand tour since the 2024 Tour de France he abandoned with a fractured pelvis on Stage 1. The 18 months since have produced a slow rebuild — a 13th at last year's Vuelta, a 22nd at the 2026 Volta a Catalunya — that the team's internal climbing data nonetheless puts at the strongest 30-day block of his career. "Richard has returned to the race he won, and he has returned with a climbing engine the team has not seen in three years," Wegelius said at the launch. "The Mottolino is the day. He is ready for it."
Cepeda's role is the closest EF have come to running a co-leadership card on a grand tour since 2022. The 26-year-old Ecuadorian, Carapaz's national-team training partner and the rider whose Andorran spring camp delivered the climbing-data delta the team has built the GC ride around, takes the second card and the explicit release-the-card brief on Stage 17 to Sappada and Stage 20's San Pellegrino in Alpe TT. The market is priced 8/1 Cepeda ends the Giro inside the top ten on GC, and 11/2 he wins the maglia azzurra over the three weeks — a target the team's stage-by-stage projection model has him collecting points on at least nine of the twenty-one days.
Bissegger is the Stage 1 specialist and the rider most likely to deliver an EF stage win in the first week. The 27-year-old Swiss, who won the 2022 Tirreno-Adriatico TT and finished third at last year's Volta a Catalunya prologue, has been priced 6/1 for the 16.4km Nessebar opener — a flat, technical course that favours the rouleur over the climbing TT specialist. Wegelius confirmed Bissegger is the team's protected rider for Stage 1 with a full lead-out package built around the closing 3km, and the bike will be the new Cannondale SystemSix TT prototype that the team UCI-homologated three weeks ago at the Drome velodrome.
The supporting cast is built around two specific tactical roles. Quinn, the 25-year-old American who finished fourth on Stage 7 of last year's Tour, is the medium-mountain shutdown rider and the road captain. Piccolo, the 24-year-old Italian whose home crowd will line every climb in the second and third weeks, is the second high-mountain domestique behind Cepeda. Honore is the valley-stage and crosswind specialist. Chaves, the 36-year-old Colombian veteran whose 2017 Giro third-place finish remains the team's high-water mark, takes the road-captain layer and the experienced-pro mentorship brief on his ninth grand tour as an EF rider. Van den Berg fills out the puncheur card and is priced on the Stage 6 Pescara reduced-bunch finale.
The notable absence is Ben Healy. The 25-year-old Irishman, whose 2023 Giro Stage 8 Fossombrone solo win remains the team's most recognisable race-day moment of the last five years, has been kept back for the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France in July rather than dropped into a Giro support role at the deep end. The team's data on Healy's 30-day rolling power numbers showed a 4 percent dip from his Spring Classics peak in late March, and Wegelius confirmed the call to skip the Giro was made on the medical-staff brief rather than a tactical decision. Healy will return to racing at the Tour of Switzerland on 15 June.
The team's pre-race expected-value model puts the eight-rider squad at 1.5 stage wins, 0.3 podium probability for Carapaz, a 56 percent probability of at least one rider inside the top ten on GC, and a 41 percent probability of one Cepeda or Carapaz day in the maglia rosa across the three weeks. The Stage 16 Mottolino-Bormio queen stage is the marked GC day. The Stage 14 Asiago double-summit and the Stage 17 Sappada finish are the days the team have priced for a Cepeda release-the-card scenario if Carapaz is locked in a defence ride. The Stage 20 San Pellegrino in Alpe TT remains the team's secondary GC test.
Carapaz, Cepeda and Bissegger leave for Sofia on Wednesday morning. The remainder of the squad arrives 36 hours before the Stage 1 roll-out. The team's pre-race press conference is scheduled for 17:00 on Thursday at the Sofia Marriott. The internal target after the squad announcement is top-eight GC, one stage, and the maglia azzurra a stretch goal that the team's race-strategy document acknowledges is "achievable but contingent on the Mottolino-Bormio playing into a breakaway scenario rather than a UAE-Visma controlled finale". Sofia is six days away. The rebuild is at its sharp end.