It's Yer Giro d'Italia 2019 in Preview, Part Due: The GC Contenders!

Okay, tifosi, we got the corsa rosa down--now who's gonna rule it?  Probably one of these guys!

Mikel Landa: first, everyone can suck it for not including we love Mikel Landa in their top five.  Sure, he hasn't won a Grand Tour *yet*.  And with Alejandro Valverde missing in action with a gnarly butt-bone bruise, he'll lack some serious mountain firepower.  On the plus side, with Alejandro Valverde missing in action with a gnarly butt-bone bruise, he'll also lack the threat of a serious race-crushing bushwhack from his own teammate.  Of course, our luckless Mikel is down with a vicious toe-rub injury because Movistar sucks *and* all the gods of Valhalla are conspiring against him, but we know this--he's hungry, he's podiumed and won stages here before, it'd be bitchin' to give the unappreciative Movistar a giant !@#$ you as he bolts out the door to take Nibs' place at Bahrain-Merida, and, in a reasonably mountain goat's Giro where even the GC-blowing TTs are on the steep side, the boy can *climb*.  And even without Valverde, Mikel's got some hardcore backup: youngster Carapaz, who had a smashing Giro 2018, and Andrey Amador for the mountains, and JJ Rojas for some protection in the flats.  Aupa Mikeeeeeel--and the rest of you haters know what you can do with that!

Vincenzo Nibali: two-time Giro champ/don't forget his Tour or Vuelta either Nibs is focusing on the Giro this year, and that means one thing for the peloton: pain.  Pain on the climbs, pain on the rolling stages when he's in pursuit, pain on the flats when you can't even shake him, and most especially pain on the descents, where he'll blast by you and be enjoying a massage, a facial, and a cocktail back at the hotel while you're still white-knuckling your squirrely !@# down the first freakin' hairpin on the second-to-last Dolomite of the day.  Downside: second only to Tom Dumoulin's, his team's maybe not so strong as others' GC squads here.  Like that matters?  He's the freakin' Shark, !@#dammit!

Tom Dumoulin: all right, I'm still irked that someone the approximate body size of a steriod-suckin' Incredible Hulk can seemingly climb like a two-kilogram Chavito, but that aside, and ignoring his own grim outlook, Tom's gotta have nothin' but love for this route: he's got two whole weeks to conserve his energy before the mountains kick in, and he's got three whole time trials that, while not the flat profile beloved by specialists, nonetheless puts him on a bike that he can ride effortlessly while the other GC contenders are just praying to manage to stay reliably upright.  If he can minimize his losses on the giant passes, he could do this.  Aupa Mikeeeeeeeeel!

Simon Yates: the most excruciating "almost" of Giro 2018, when he bonked spectacularly on the grueling Finestre while that flailing spider windmill charged ahead for the win, he's got unfinished business here, and put a pretty sweet down payment on it with his late-season Vuelta win.  And while he says he's riding "conservatively" this trip, I assume that also means he'll be paying sharp attention to eating and drinking, to at least take one potential source of total collapse out of the threat pool. And who's he's got on his side? Cheerful Esteban Chaves, who'd also like to redeem a tough 2018, and we love fabulous veteran Carrot Mikel Nieve, who's already bagged the maglia azzurra and a buncha stage wins in this glorious race.  Hold your head together, and you've got a real shot at maglia rosa glory!

Primoz Roglic: look, I get it. He had a great Romandie, he's got a huge engine, he's an enormous talent.  But a three-week Grand Tour is an entirely different garanimal from a week-long stage race, and 21 days is plenty of time to grind even a strongman like this kid into a whimpering, jelly-like nub.  He's got only a handful of Grand Tours under his chamois so far--though who's to say this won't be his breakthrough?

Miguel Angel Lopez: he's young--in fact, last year's third place is also the reigning young rider champ.  He's brilliant--and has had a great start to his season.  And typical for Vino, who has been known to actually crush people into tiny carbon piles by the steely glare of his eyeballs, Astana has brought a squad, including twee-but-formidable Ion Izagirre, designed to kill. But I'm not sure Lopez's got this one just yet.  But I am sure that Vino'll make sure anyone who says that !@#$ is gonna pay for it!

And Finally, the Absentees: hey, I'm the first to say that that ungrateful arachnid-weasel is doing the Giro a favor by not showing up this year, but with happy lieutenant Geraint Thomas also delusionally thinking he'll get an equivalent shot at the Tour this year, that's two bigwigs out, alongside the ever-formidable mostly-bridesmaid Valverde that really open things up--and mercifully shield our eyes from the grotesque sight of Froome on a bike til his main goal in July. It'd be bull!@#$ to say that the absent won't define the race as the participants--so for the guys that are left, and particularly all my ex-Carrots in the house--now's yer chance to blow this race apart!

Well Giro fans, them's mine--next up, if I get around to it before a celebratory pre-race bar crawl with my Lupo Wolfie mascot derails it til after the show's already started, the sprinters, the climbers, and the 'nother threats!