Giro d’Italia wild cards - Garzelli is back

According to RCS member Stefano Diciatteo this is how the
'Giro wild cards vote' ended. / Picture from Twitter.

Today RCS revealed the final three wild cards for this year’s Giro d’Italia and not surprisingly Colombia - Coldeportes, Vini Fantini & Bardiani-CSF all made the cut.

Inviting Vini Fantini also means that RCS are giving Stefano Garzelli a chance to ride his last Giro d’Italia after he was left out last year (read more about that here). Garzelli has already won the KOM jersey twice in the Giro and in his last race he wishes to make it three despite hard competition from some of the other wild card teams. Especially Colombia - Coldeportes will have their saying in that competition as they are set to bring pure climbers like John Darwin Atapuma, Fabio Duarte and Esteban Chavez to the race.  

Bardiani-CSF won’t have Domenico Pozzovivo and Gianluca Brambilla to back this year, but Sacha Modolo will be interesting to follow in the sprint finishes while Enrico Battaglin, Stefano Pirazzi and youngun Francesco Manuel Bongiorno will get a chance to shine in the mountains.

It’s clear to see that RCS, with these wild cards, are giving Italian cycling a helping hand after what happened last year with Team NetApp. New swiss team IAM Cycling and Kastusha were both left out, despite very strong riders on the team, and even though Kastusha still have a chance (depending on the CAS hearing) to ride the Giro, IAM Cycling must feel a bit overlooked by RCS.

What do you think? Did RCS invited the right teams? Leave you comment below!