Jonas Vingegaard Set to Shape Giro D'italia 2026 KOM Race
giro d'italia 2026 opens with no clear owner of the Maglia Azzurra, but the real fight may wait until the final week. Jonas Vingegaard is the main favorite, and 522 of the 898 total King of the Mountains points are packed into four late stages.
Vingegaard and the late climb haul
The concentration is severe: Stage 14 at Pila, Stage 16 at Carì, Stage 19 at Alleghe/Piani di Pezzè and Stage 20 at Piancavallo account for most of the scoring room left in the race. That setup keeps the classification open for riders who can attack at the right moment, but it also invites a GC rider like Vingegaard to take points almost by accident while chasing a different target.
The KOM contest is built day by day through breakaways, attacks and timing. It often takes shape in the second half of the race, and this route leans even harder into that pattern because more than half the available points are reserved for a tight run of mountain days.
Ciccone, Bouwman, and the chase
Giulio Ciccone and Koen Bouwman have already won the Maglia Azzurra, in 2019 and 2022, and both sit in the pool of proven candidates. Ciccone has said he will forgo general classification ambitions, while Bouwman rides in a setup that traditionally allows freedom to chase personal goals.
Beyond those two, the list of contenders is long enough to keep the competition unsettled. Thymen Arensman won two stages at the 2025 Tour and showed well at the Tour of the Alps, Jan Hirt won a Giro stage in Aprica in 2022, Alessandro Pinarello finished 10th at Tirreno Adriatico and reached the podium at O Gran Camiño, and Christian Scaroni was runner-up in the 2025 KOM classification behind Lorenzo Fortunato.
Astana, Movistar, and surprise pressure
Jay Vine arrives after winning the mountains classification at the 2025 Vuelta, while Egan Bernal brings an aggressive racing style and could push hard in the high mountains. XDS Astana also has multiple options in Christian Scaroni, Harold Martín López and Diego Ulissi, and Movistar can lean on Enric Mas, Juan Pedro López and Javier Romo, with López already having worn the Maglia Rosa for ten days in 2022.
That depth matters because the late mountain points can be stripped away by riders hunting other objectives, not just by pure KOM specialists. Tadej Pogačar won the Maglia Azzurra in 2024, and the 2026 race now points to the same lesson: the jersey may stay unsettled until those four stages decide who can still score when the race gets steep.
