Giro d'Italia 2013: An Overview & Team lists

The 2013 Giro d'Italia begins this weekend in Napoli as it makes it way down south to the 'toe' of Italy before turning around and heading north into the alps and across the border into France. The race will finish in the city of Brescia on the 26th of May.

The favourites for the maglia rosa have all won a grand tour which should ensure a top quality race and set the standard for grand tour riding in 2013. Ryder Hesjedal pulled off a surprise victory last year when he won the race by blitzing Joaquim Rodriguez on the final ITT stage. With the final stage a flat one a repeat of the excitement of last year seems unlikely. Vincenzo Nibali and Bradley Wiggins have both highlighted the Giro as a season goal. At the 2012 Tour de France which Wiggins won, these two went Mano-a-Mano with the now knighted Wiggins the victor. Cadel Evans was rather underpar in his Tour defence last year and will be keen to put in a good showing and reinforce his role at BMC as the top dog. Robert Gesink could challenge for a podium if he manages to avoid crashing which is becoming far too common for the Dutch rider. Sammy Sanchez likewise could finish on the podium but his time trialling isn't anywhere near good enough to challenge Wiggins or Evans.
The race offers a little bit to everyone and won't have the mass post-stage transfers that have characterised the Giro in recent editions. Except for a brief foray into France, this is a wholly Italian edition of the race and perhaps the first edition since Ivan Basso's win in 2010 that an Italian can triumph.
The stage break down is;
-1 Team Time Trial
-2 Individual Time Trials
-5 Mountian Stages
-6 Medium Mountain Stages
-7 Flat Stages

Teams (will be updated when announced)

Orica-GreenEdge
Luke Durbridge
Matt Goss
Leigh Howard
Jens Keukeleire
Brett Lancaster
Christian Meier
Jens Mouris
Svein Tuft
Pieter Weening

Cannondale
Ivan Basso 
Elia Viviani
Tiziano Dall’Antonia
Paolo Longo Borghini
Alan Marangoni
Fabio Sabatini
Cameron Wurf
Cristiano Salerno
Josè Sarmiento
Damiano Caruso

Movistar
Eros Capecchi
Juanjo Cobo
Alex Dowsett
José Herrada
Beñat Intxausti
Pablo Lastras
Vladimir Karpets
Fran Ventoso
Giovanni Visconti

Euskaltel Eusakadi
Jorge Azanza
Egoi Martinez
Miguel Minguez
Ricardo Mestre
Samuel Sanchez
Ioannis Tamouridis
Pablo Urtasun
Gorka Verdugo
Robert Vrecer

Saxo-Tinkoff
Daniele Bennati
Matti Breschel
Manuele Boaro
Mads Christensen
Karsten Kroon
Rafal Majka
Bruno Pires
Evgeny Petrov
Rory Sutherland

Team Sky 
Dario Cataldo
Sergio Henao
Christian Knees
Danny Pate
Salvatore Puccio
Kanstantsin Siutsou
Rigoberto Urán
Xabier Zandio
Sir Bradley Wiggins         

Argos-Shimano
Bert De Backer
Thomas Damuseau
John Degenkolb
Patrick Gretsch
Cheng Ji
Koen de Kort
Tobias Ludvigsson
Luka Mezgec
Albert Timmer

Team Columbia
Darwin Atapuma 
Edwin Avila
Robinson Chalapud
Fabio Duarte
Leonardo Duque
Wilson Marentes
Dalivier Ospina
Jarlinson Pantano
Carlos Julian Quintero

RadioShack-Leopard
George Bennett
Danilo Hondo
Robert Kišerlovski
Tiago Machado
Giacomo Nizzolo
Nelson Oliveira
Yaroslav Popovych
Hayden Roulston
Jesse Sergent

Astana
Fabio Aru
Valerio Agnoli
Dmitri Gruzdev
Tanel Kangert
Fredrik Kessiakof
Paolo Tiralongo
Alessandro Vanotti
Vincenzo Nibali
Andrey Zeits

Omega Pharma-Quick Step
Gianluca Brambilla
Mark Cavendish
Michal Golas
Iljo Keisse
Serge Pauwels
Jerome Pineau
Gert Steegmans
Matteo Trentin
Julien Vermote

Lampre-Merida
Mattia Cattaneo

Kristjan Durasek

Roberto Ferrari

Przemyslav Niemec

Daniele Pietropolli

Filippo Pozzato

Michele Scarponi

Jose Serpa

Simone Stortoni
 
Katusha

Maxim Belkov

Pavel Brutt

Giampaolo Caruso

Vladimir Gusev

Petr Ignatenko

Dmitriy Kozontchuk

Luca Paolini

Yury Trofimov

Angel Vicioso

Vini Fantini-Selle Italia

Rafael Andriato

Francesco Chicchi

Danilo Di Luca 

Stefano Garzelli

Oscar Gatto

Alessandro Proni

Matteo Rabottini

Mauro Santambrogio

Fabio Taborre

Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela

Giairo Ermeti

Fabio Felline

Mattia Gavazzi

Tomas Gil

Franco Pellizotti

Jackson Rodriguez

Diego Rosa

Miguel Angel Rubiano

Emanuele Sella

Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox

Marco Canola

Sonny Colbrelli

Enrico Battaglin

Nicola Boem

Manuel Bongiorno

Paolo Locatelli

Sacha Modolo

Stefano Pirazzi

Edoardo Zardini

Vacansoleil-DCM 

Grega Bole

Martijn Keizer

Maurits Lammertink

Pim Ligthart

Marco Marcato

Rob Ruijgh

Jose Rujano

Rafael Valls

Frederik Veuchelen

Ag2r La Mondiale 

Davide Appollonio

Manuel Belletti

Julien Bérard

Carlos Betancur

Guillaume Bonnafond

Hubert Dupont

Ben Gastauer

Sylvain Georges

Domenico Pozzovivo

BMC
Adam Blythe
Steve Cummings
Cadel Evans
Klaas Lodewyck
Steve Morabito
Daniel Oss
Taylor Phinney
Ivan Santaromita
Danilo Wyss