With Joaquim Rodriguez and Alexander Kristoff focusing on the Tour de France, Katusha will go into the Giro d'Italia with an almost all-Italian roster that will be led by the experienced Luca Paolini.

Last year the team went into the race with the plan to take the overall victory with Rodriguez but this year they have a much flatter hierarchy where everybody will be free to take his own chance. The team will focus both on stage wins and a possible top 10 on GC.

The main drawcard on the roster is Ilnur Zakarin who took a surprise overall win in the Tour de Romandie. The Russian is lining up for his first grand tour and has played down expectations, claiming that he is mainly in Italy to learn.

Alongside Zakarin, Yury Trofimov and Sergey Chernetskiy may both be capable of a good GC. Trofimov finished in the top 15 two years ago and will be eager to improve on that performance while Chernetskiy aims at developing into a GC contender.

Sergey Lagutin will be chasing stage wins in the hilly stages while Maxim Belkov will use the good form he showed in Romandie to go on the attack like he did in 2013 when he won the stage to Florence. Alexander Porsev will be the leader in the sprinters where he can count on the support of Paolini who will also take his chances like in 2013 when he took both a stage win and the maglia rosa in a belated debut in his home race.

The team is completed by the versatile talent of Pavel Kochetkov who can both climb and sprint and nearly took the yellow jersey on stage 3 in Romandie, and time trial specialist Anton Vorbyev who will be important in the opening team time trial and will target the long time trial in stage 14.

Katusha for the Giro d'Italia

Maxim Belkov, Sergei Chernetckii, Pavel Kochetkov, Sergey Lagutin, Luca Paolini, Aleksandr Porsev, Iurii Trofimov, Anton Vorobyev and Ilnur Zakarin.