In recent years, the unofficial Grand Tour hat-trick has become one of the most sought after prizes in cycling with just one catch - you don’t get a medal, a jersey or a trophy for the achievement. Instead of a more solid prize, riders simply get the prestige of having it listed on their palmarès, as well as kudos from their fellow professionals and the rest of the cycling world.
The achievement doesn’t really have an official name either, but for the purpose of this, we’ll go with the Grand Tour hat-trick. In case it isn't clear, riders who have won stages in all three of cycling’s Grand Tours are those who have completed the treble. 111 men have pulled off victories in the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España, with Ben O’Connor being the latest to do so. Richard Carapaz, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe also all rounded off a set of stage wins in all three of the Grand Tours last year, the latter with a memorable victory in Fano in the Giro in one of his final acts for Soudal Quick-Step.
With the Giro due to get underway in Albania today, we found ourselves asking: who could complete the hat trick this May? The answer is six riders: Wout Poels (XDS Astana), Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), Romain Bardet (Picnic PostNL), Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and UAE Team Emirates-XRG pair Adam Yates and Rafal Majka.
Members of the triple winners club tend to be repeat stage winners, the sort of riders you could put your last £10 on to win a stage in a Grand Tour and they’d pull it off for you. But it is extremely rare for riders to have won exactly one stage in each of the three races, as as pointed out by Cillian Kelly on his Substack. In fact it’s so rare that only two riders still competing have done just that, Ben O’Connor and Lidl-Trek’s Lennard Kämna.
Separately, four women have completed the hat-trick in the female peloton. Given her prolific winning record during her career, it’s no surprise that Annemiek van Vleuten is one of the four. Marianne Vos, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes round off the list. If she takes a win in the Giro Donne this year, Demi Vollering will join the club.
Check out our How to watch the Giro guide to follow all of the racing across the next three weeks, and keep an eye out for the six men who could join the hat-trick list.
