Team Katusha came to the Giro with a squad headed by McEwen, Pozzato, (both of whom would try for stage wins) and Caruso, the team's general classification hopeful. Caruso had begun the 2010 season under contract to Ceramica Flaminia, but was allowed to leave the team when they were not selected for the Giro. McEwen was present for a depleted group sprint finish to the Giro's first road race stage in Netherlands, taking seventh. He missed the selections the next day, however, and finished 57 seconds behind the leaders. Prior the transfer to Italy, the team's highest-placed rider in the overall standings was Karpets in 12th. The squad took fourth in the stage 4 team time trial, having been first when they completed their ride and bettered by only Team Sky, Team HTC-Columbia, and the winners Liquigas-Doimo. As Karpets was one of the five riders who finished together, the result moved him into seventh in the overall standings. Karpets moved up to fifth after stage 6, when sprinters Matthew Goss and André Greipel, who had been ahead of him, were unable to finish with the peloton due to the hilly parcours. The next day shuffled the standings more. Karpets lost 1'18 in the difficult, muddy stage in Tuscany, but moved up to fourth as other riders were worse off and lost even more time. In the Giro's first mountain stage, concluding with the climb up Monte Terminillo, Petrov climbed with the Giro's elite and was able to slip out the front of the group on the ascent since he did not pose an overall threat. He took fourth on the stage, seven seconds ahead of the rest of the peloton and 49 seconds back of the solo winner. Karpets was dropped on the climb and lost over a minute, falling back to seventh overall. The squad came very close again to stage wins the next two days. Pozzato made a late split in the field in stage 9 and finished second in the group sprint, just behind Goss and ahead of the Giro's only double stage winner Tyler Farrar. In stage 10, Julian Dean's leadout for Farrar caused a split within the final of the stage. McEwen was one of just eight other riders to finish with the same time as stage winner Farrar, taking fourth on the day.