The wait for the first Grand Tour of the season is nearly over, with the Giro d’Italia set to roll out in Belfast with tonight’s team time trial.

With the first maglia rosa of this year’s race up for grabs on the tricky city centre circuit it promises to be an incident-packed start.

But for some riders, the real action starts tomorrow (Saturday May 10) with the first road stage, when the sprinters will be looking to rack up the first of what they hope will be several stage wins in the 2014 Giro d’Italia.

Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) picked up five stage wins last season, enough to see him bag the maglia rosso for the first time in his career – becoming the first sprinter to top the points classification in five years.

With the Manxman missing the race this year however to hone his preparations for the Tour de France, could one of his fellow fast men follow suit and pick up the prized jersey?

We have already looked at the GC contenders and those fighting for the titles of King of the Mountains and Best Young Rider.

Now read our assessment of the sprinters’ over the following pages.

How many sprinters have made your Fantasy Giro squads for the first week? You have eight transfers in week one, so head here to make any changes.