[15] The Molteni team was viewed to have strong supports for Merckx with Roger Swerts, Martin Van Den Bossche, and Jozef Spruyt.

[15] It was known that Merckx wished to target the upcoming Tour de France and it was thought that he and his team would try to be conservative with their efforts at the Giro.

[15] A third victory would tie Merckx with the likes of Giovanni Brunero, Gino Bartali, and Fiorenzo Magni, whom each had won the race three times.

[9] Five-time champion Alfredo Binda commented that Merckx's participation "promises episodes of high competitive value, even if the Belgian is no longer the powerful athlete, almost irresistible from two years ago.

[9] Pettersson's teammate Gianni Motta was also viewed as a general classification threat, which was thought to hinder their chances as Merckx was the sole leader of his Molteni team.

[9] The same was thought for the Salvarani team which featured two-time winner Felice Gimondi (1967 and 1969) and Italo Zilioli.

[16] Spanish climbers José Manuel Fuente and Miguel María Lasa, both from the KAS team, were expected to disrupt Merckx in the mountains and could challenge for a high general classification ranking.

[18][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Sprinters Marino Basso (Salvarani) and Patrick Sercu (Dreher) were thought to be the favorites to win the opening flat stages.

[16] Notable absences from the race included Rik Van Linden (Magniflex) who had injured his foot in the Vuelta.

[34] Torriani reported that Belgium had expressed interest in hosting the start of the race with a cash incentive, but arrived late in the process and would be considered for the 1973 edition.

[34] At the initial route announcement there was speculation that a prologue would take place on 20 May in Venice,[34] but it was later reported to have failed because Torriani did not get approval from the Venetian government.

[19] The route began in Venice for the first time in race history and traveled south and crossed the Apennines until reaching the edge of the continental section of Italy.

[8] Author William Fotheringham shared that sentiment, specifically stating that Torriani designed the route in order to give José Manuel Fuente several opportunities to attack Eddy Merckx.

[38] Eddy Merckx lost the sprint finish to defending champion Gösta Pettersson on stage 7 but took the lead of the race and never looked back en route to the 3rd of his five Giro victories.

Roger De Vlaeminck won the points classification as well as four of his career 22 Giro stage victories.