Visma-Lease a Bike Confirm The 2026 Giro d'Italia Roster — Vingegaard's Grand Tour Trilogy Attempt Backed By Kuss-Kelderman-Affini-Lemmen-Kielich-Campenaerts-Piganzoli
Wednesday afternoon Den Bosch. Visma-Lease a Bike have formally confirmed the eight-rider Giro d'Italia 2026 squad that will support Jonas Vingegaard on his maiden Italian Grand Tour: Edoardo Affini, Wilco Kelderman, Sepp Kuss, Bart Lemmen, Timo Kielich, Victor Campenaerts and Davide Piganzoli line up alongside the Dane. It is the first time Vingegaard has ridden the Giro and the move completes a deliberate two-year project to attempt the rare modern Giro–Tour double after a 2025 season in which he finished second to Tadej Pogačar in France.
Head of racing Grischa Niermann set out the rationale at the press call: "Apart from the fact that he has always wanted to do the Giro, we are convinced that racing the Giro will benefit his level in the Tour." It is a significant departure from Visma's recent Tour-only model for Vingegaard — built around the Critérium du Dauphiné and altitude blocks — and reflects the team's reading of where the marginal gains now sit. The Giro start in Bulgaria on 8 May, followed by a long transfer day before the racing reaches Italian soil, gives the Dane a three-week race-pace block before any final June Tour ramp.
The mountain support is built around Sepp Kuss and Wilco Kelderman, the two most decorated Grand Tour climbers on the books. Kuss's role mirrors his 2023 Vuelta winning partnership with Vingegaard — the American is again expected to take the final selection on the highest summits, the Bocca di Selva, the Mortirolo, and the Colle delle Finestre, before peeling off in the closing kilometres. Kelderman, fifth at the 2020 Giro, brings GC-level depth that UAE Team Emirates-XRG are conspicuously missing in their own line-up.
Davide Piganzoli is the Italian wildcard. The 23-year-old, signed from Polti-VisitMalta on a three-year deal at the end of 2025, debuts at his home Grand Tour in his first season at WorldTour level after winning Stage 7 of last year's Tour de l'Avenir. Piganzoli is being framed as a future GC option in his own right but in May the role is to take the late-mountain pulls when Kuss has exited the equation — a like-for-like replacement for the same role Visma assigned Bart Lemmen at the 2024 Giro.
Edoardo Affini and Victor Campenaerts are the engine room. Affini, the reigning Italian time-trial champion, is the obvious GC-day road-captain on a parcours that contains 70.6km of individual time-trial — Stage 10 in Cesena and the Stage 21 Verona finalé. Campenaerts brings classic Belgian flat-road horsepower and is also pencilled in as a stage-hunting option on the lumpy transition stages where the GC group will not contest the win. Timo Kielich, the new positioner signing from Alpecin-Deceuninck, is the dedicated lead-out for the Stage 1 Sofia bunch finish if the breakaway is brought back.
Bart Lemmen rounds out the eight as Vingegaard's road-room companion and altitude-camp roommate from the team's late-April Sierra Nevada block. The Dutchman is the team's quiet super-domestique and gets the unglamorous early-mountain pacing role on the Stage 16 Mortirolo and the Stage 19 Finestre — the two stages where Visma's plan is to put the race to the sword before Pogačar's absence stops being an analytical advantage and starts being an obligation.
The betting market has moved sharply on the announcement. Vingegaard remains 1/2 outright across the major books, but the Visma team-stage outright price has shortened from 11/8 to evens, the shortest pre-Giro team price the bookmakers have set since the 2023 Vuelta. Primož Roglič stays at 6/1 with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, while Ayuso has shortened from 9/2 to 7/2 inside UAE Team Emirates-XRG's published eight.
Vingegaard flies to Bulgaria on Saturday morning for the Stage 1 reconnaissance and final pre-race press call. The Stage 1 Sofia bunch finish is rated 11/4 with Visma's lead-out train on a flat 168.4km, but the team's own internal modelling — leaked to the Dutch press — has the maglia rosa held outside the squad until the Stage 4 Etna summit. After that, the trilogy attempt is on.