Geoghegan Hart Eyes Emotional Giro d'Italia Return After Injury Nightmare — 'First Normal Winter Since I Joined the Team'
Tao Geoghegan Hart is edging closer to a long-awaited return to the Giro d'Italia, the race where he pulled off one of the most dramatic Grand Tour victories in modern history. The 2020 Giro champion, now riding for Lidl-Trek, has confirmed that he is on the longlist for May's 109th edition of the Corsa Rosa, and for the first time in years, the signs are genuinely encouraging.
"It's the first normal winter I've had since I've been on the team," Geoghegan Hart revealed in a candid interview. "We finally managed to have a good winter, with conditions being ideal so far. No surgery, no rehab — just training." For a rider whose career since that extraordinary October triumph in Milan has been defined by setbacks, those words carry enormous weight.
The Briton's path since his Giro glory has been one of the most painful in recent cycling memory. A devastating crash on Stage 11 of the 2023 Giro d'Italia left him with a serious hip fracture that required extensive surgery and a rehabilitation process stretching well into the following season. The injury robbed him of the best years of his career and raised genuine questions about whether he would ever compete at the highest level again.
Lidl-Trek head coach Josu Larrazabal has struck a cautiously optimistic tone about the 31-year-old's prospects. "We don't even know yet if we'll do the Giro, because first we have to take several steps," Larrazabal explained. "The priority is health, then continuity. A rider like Tao needs to be in certain conditions to line up at the Giro — he can't go there just to be there. To return, he first needs to rediscover himself, his confidence, and the stability that has been missing in recent years."
Geoghegan Hart himself has been refreshingly honest about where he stands. "I can still be hugely valuable," he said ahead of what is the final year of his current contract with the American squad. "I know what I'm capable of on my best day. The question is whether I can string enough of those days together over three weeks." It is the kind of self-awareness that has always defined the Londoner, who won the 2020 Giro without ever wearing the Maglia Rosa until the final time trial in Milan.
Should Geoghegan Hart make the start in Nessebar, Bulgaria on May 8th, he would face a mountainous route featuring over 49,000 metres of climbing and the fearsome Passo Giau as the queen stage. The competition will be fierce: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) makes his Giro debut as the pre-race favourite, while Joao Almeida, Richard Carapaz and young Italian Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) all harbour podium ambitions.
For Geoghegan Hart, however, the Giro has always represented something more than results alone. His 2020 victory — achieved as a support rider who was elevated to leadership only after teammate Geraint Thomas crashed out — remains one of the sport's great underdog stories. A return to Italy's Grand Tour would close a circle that injury so cruelly interrupted, regardless of where he finishes on the final classification in Rome on May 31st.
The next checkpoint is the Tour of the Alps and Tour de Romandie double later this month, which will serve as a final audition for Giro selection. After everything he has endured, few in the peloton would begrudge the quiet Londoner one more shot at the race that changed his life.