The sterrato, the mountains, the colossi of Finestre and Mortirolo and a very difficult last week define the Giro d’Italia 2025

They say good things take time to wait and this Monday, almost three months after its usual presentation, the launch of Giro d’Italia 2025 in the city of Romein an event that occurred in Auditorium Parco della Musica and which had the stage presence of two racing champions such as Alberto Contador (2008, 2015) and Vincenzo Nibaliwho remains the last Italian champion of the race (2016).

As has been happening for some time now with great cycling tours, they do an initial presentation and then they serve the complete menu at all the eateries. Of those 108th edition of the Giro d’Italia It is known that the first three stages, which will pass through the land of Albania, before experiencing the first day of relative rest with the transition and face the fourth stage which will be on Italian soil, ideal for sprinters. The Corsa Rosa 2025 It is longer than in 2024 (3,413 km compared to 3,321 km in 2024) and has a greater total gradient, 42,900 meters in 2024 and 52,500 this year. As in 2024, the Giro has two stages with two time trial stages, one in Albania and the second of 28.6 km on the tenth day, so that runners doing worse against the clock have room to heal their wounds.

Broadly speaking, the Giro d’Italia proposes, as usual and as Nibali said in presentation, emotion and spectacle, a festive program in which the ninth stage stands out, passing through beautiful Tuscany towards in Siena and where Like the Strade Bianche, it will have five sections of ‘sterrato’, dirt tracks, for a total of almost 30 kilometers.

The race will be decided by small details, but the runners will have to save their energy for a ‘criminal’ last week, except for the triumphant walk in Rome for the survivors of the last day. The Pink Corsa will start to get serious on May 27 in the 16th stage, the first five-star, with the highest difficulty, with the highest gradient of the Giro, almost 5,000 meters, with five climbs, three of them the first category before ending with Valentine’s Day.

This will be the first real test the favorites have to face before the other two important days of the race, the 19th and 20th, not to mention the 17th, with the climb to Mortirolo less than 40 kilometers from the finish to the finish Bormioa day of only 154 kilometers that will add even more toughness and nervousness to the peloton.

The 19th, also short, 166 kilometers, in between Biella and Champoluc It is, as defined by the Giro itself, an “alpine stage”, which has no rest and which in 100 kilometers includes climbing three large ports of 16 kilometers of ascent: Tzecore cabbage (up to 15%), Col Saint-Pantaléon and Col de Jouxbefore descending to Brusson and facing the final climb to Antagnoo5 km from arrival at Champoluc.

The last fireworks

With legs aching and burning, the peloton faces the last real stage of the Giro 2025, the decisive stage, as Nibali said: 2023 kilometers, between Verrès and Sestriere. The decisive stage of the Giro in case the differences are not particularly large. He travels most of the solo route he does Chris Froomee in the 2018 Giro, including climbing the Colle del Lys as an appetizer for Finestre Hill (2,178 meters), the Cima Coppi with 8 km of sterrato (dirt road) at 9%, before facing a short descent and the final climb to Sestriere.

Only the strongest cyclist ever touched by a magic wand will survive this grueling edition of the Giro d’Italia. Today, it is known that men of the stature of Primoz Roglic, Juan Ayuso or Mikel Landa confirmed their presence in the race, waiting to find out what the two great dominators of the peloton will do, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingagaardafter the Belgians Remco Evenepoel said that he would not arrive in time after the accident he suffered while training in his country. Pogacar is looking for a successor to the Giro record.