Who would bet against Thomas De Gendt to win the Giro d’Italia mountains jersey?

The French call them baroudeurs, bold breakaway artists, and their country has produced some real aces: Jacky Durand, Sylvain Chavanel and Thomas Voeckler among them. Germany has contributed some riders with swashbuckling derring-do as well, like Tony Martin and Jens Voigt. But the premier breakaway artist in the men’s peloton right now is Lotto-Soudal’s Belgian Thomas De Gendt, and he’s returning to the Giro d’Italia for the first time since 2014.

You will see Thomas De Gendt in escapes throughout the 102nd Giro. In March he won the first stage of the Volta a Catalunya with a 60-km solo ride. He might already have stage wins in all three Grand Tours (his Tour de France victory was on Ventoux, so you know the cat can climb), but this dynamic rider is always on the hunt. Moreover, he’s after the Giro’s blue King of the Mountains jersey.

Incredibly, out of 12 Grand Tours he has finished, De Gendt has only won one mountains classification, in last year’s Vuelta a España. But he often earns mountains jerseys in week-long stage races, most recently having bagged them in this year’s Volta a Catalunya and Paris-Nice and last year’s Tour de Romandie and Paris-Nice.

De Gendt winning the blue jersey this year while showing his usual indefatigable élan would break Ineos’ grip on the prize, with the old Sky squad having taken it over the past three years via Mikel Nieve, Mikel Landa and Chris Froome. The Belgian might have to fend off Italians from wild card teams–from 2008 to 2013 they claimed five of the six blue jerseys.

The best way to be free to fly and suck up KOM points is to lose time early in the race, so no GC contenders have to worry about you being up the road as a fugitive, and you can stack up the mountain points on regular escapes. De Gendt will probably get into the small breaks in the first week and build a points base, but lose enough time on GC to get in the larger breaks in Weeks 2 and 3 when there’s more Cat. 1 and HC climbs on offer.

Not that he can’t run with the big dogs; in 2012 he stood on the final Giro podium with Ryder Hesjedal and Joaquim “El Purito” Rodriguez.