Team Sky's squad for the Giro d'Italia will include the British riders Peter Kennaugh and Ben Swift and the multitalented Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen, with the Tour de France winners Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome keeping their powder dry for July. With the race starting with three days in Northern Ireland and the Republic, the team also field their only Irishman, the Vuelta a España stage winner Philip Deignan. The team also include the Italians Salvatore Puccio and Dario Cataldo, the Colombian Sebastián Henao, Austria's Bernhard Eisel and the Belarusian Kanstantsin Sivtsou. There is no obvious leader among the nine but the Guardian understands that Sky's plan is for Kennaugh to aim for a high placing in the final standings, so that he can gain experience of riding for the overall classification in a three-week tour for the first time. The man Sky had hoped would provide their overall challenge for the Giro, the Australian Richie Porte, has been forced to rejig his plan for the season following a bout of gastroenteritis that disrupted his racing in March, when he was forced to pull out of Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Catalonia. Following that, Sky made an early call to withdraw him from the Giro so that he can focus his entire attention on supporting Froome's defence of his Tour title. Given the form shown recently by Froome's biggest rival, Alberto Contador, that looks like a wise move. The Giro never figured in the plans of either Wiggins or Froome for this season, leaving Sky with something of a leadership vacuum, opening the way for Kennaugh. He has ridden the Giro twice, finishing 86th on his debut in 2011, and pulling out after stage 15 in 2012, the year he won a gold medal in the team pursuit at the London Olympic Games. He was a surprise selection for the Tour de France last year but performed above expectations in spite of an early crash, showing strongly in the mountains in support of Froome. In his time at the British Cycling academy, he was tipped as a future winner of the Tour de France, which makes his debut as team leader all the more intriguing. Kennaugh and Swift have been two of Team Sky's better performers this season, both winning a stage in the Coppi and Bartali Trophy, which Kennaugh won overall, with Cataldo – who has twice finished 12th in the Giro – second. Swift also finished third in Milan-San Remo, the opening one-day Classic of the season, and took a significant win in the penultimate stage of the Tour of the Basque Country, when he outsprinted a small lead group including all the best climbers. The Giro should offer the Yorkshireman a variety of opportunities of this kind, because of the tough terrain that can often eliminate the fastest sprinters before a stage finish.
