An air of Strade Bianche and the Colle delle Finestre as justice of the peace
After a muscular and demanding start in Albania (two dynamic stages and a time of 13.4 km in Tirana), the Giro will offer a route which combines six stages for sprinters (but some could smile on the attackers, with bumpy finals), eight medium mountain stages for adventurers and five high mountain stages (including three summit arrivals).
Two stages particularly attract attention: the 9th and the 20th. What do they have in common? Gravel! The first will take place partly on the roads of Strade Bianche, with 30 kilometers of white roads and a finale in Piazza del Campo in Siena. The second will take the legendary Colle delle Finestere and its eight unpaved kilometers for the fifth time in the history of the Giro. This terrible climb (18.8 km at 9% average with passages over 16%) will also be the Cima Coppi of the Tour of Italy (the highest pass, with its 2197 meters of altitude).
“I won the Giro there in 2015 but I was constantly at the limit,” remembers Alberto Contador, double winner of the event (2008, 2015), present at Auditorium della Musica Rome with Vincenzo Nibali, also double winner (2013, 2016) for the presentation of the 2025 course. “We can still expect emotion and spectacle”summed up the Messina Shark.
No Pogacar but a good line-up already confirmed
If some riders were waiting for the route to be made official to announce their presence (or absence), the Giro plateau is already taking shape. The title holder Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel will not be at the start in Durazzo. A small disappointment for the organizers, who had even scheduled 40 kilometers in Slovenia to attract the world champion, but undoubtedly good news for the show. The presence of one of the three aforementioned runners could have had a negative impact on the suspense, as they seem above the rest.
-The fourth fantastic, Primoz Roglic (RedBull Bora Hansgrohe), will be very present. But the competition will be real. Richard Carapaz (EF Education – Easy Post), winner of the event in 2019, Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso (UAE Emirates), Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step), Romain Bardet (Team Picnic PostNL), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious ), Derek Gee (Israel – Premier Tech) or David Gaudu (Groupama – FDJ) have already confirmed their participation with general classification ambitions.
Several dynamiters are also announced, such as Pello Bilbao, Nairo Quintana, Isaac Del Toro, Paul Magnier… or a certain Wout van Aert. If he will officially confirm his participation in the Giro this Tuesday, during the Visma media day | Lease a Bike at La Nucia, the Belgian can rub his hands when reading a route that matches his qualities. With a first stage that can fuel his dreams of a pink jersey, 42 kilometers of time in total, hilly stages, finals for punchers and sprinters (he should be Olav Kooij's official pilot fish on the flat stages ), we should find WVA to its advantage. And the winner of the Strade Bianche 2021 may have already ticked off the ninth stage, which seems particularly suited to his qualities. For him, the wait was clearly worth it.
A resumption in Spain, no Italian classics and a Giro-Tour double: this is what Wout van Aert's 2025 program could look like
