Next Saturday the 106th Giro d’Italia will start from Fossacesia Marina, on the Costa dei Trabocchi in Abruzzo and will end, after 3,449 kilometres, at sunset on Sunday 28 May 2023 in Rome in the incomparable setting of the Imperial Forums.
The May party will begin with a heavy stage given that the opening time trial of almost 20 kilometres, which will take the riders to Ortona, could already dig significant gaps. For Italy, this first appointment will probably be the only opportunity to see an Italian, Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), wear the pink jersey. After the second stage, also entirely from Abruzzo from Teramo to San Salvo, will give us the first sprint of the race, the third from Vasto to Melfi in Basilicata and the following from Venosa to Lake Laceno should lend themselves to long-range breakaways that could produce short-term changes at the top of the rankings. The probable compact ranked sprint of Salerno will be the prelude to a poker of stages full of pitfalls.
We will return to Naples, scene last year of an exciting battle between the young lion, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin Deceuninck), and the lord of the escape, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Dstny), who, probably, that day at at the foot of Vesuvius he sang his swan song, making fun of Raymond Poulidor’s nephew. In the absence of these two cycling artists, all that remains is to hope that someone has the ambition and courage to make the most of an explosive first half of the route.
The next day there will be the first uphill finish in the seventh fraction which will go from Capua to the 2,130 meters above sea level of Campo Imperatore. It will be the fifth arrival of the Giro on the Gran Sasso d’Italia where, on the first occasion in 1971 in very bad weather conditions, similar to those expected on May 12th, Vicente Lopez Carril inaugurated the five-year domination of Kas, the Spanish team authentic university of the climbers, in arrivals at high altitude. That day, the general classification was upset: it is not excluded that the same will happen this year. In the context of what precedes it, and also of what is scheduled for the following day, the eighth day, in which we will travel from Terni to Fossombrone, could be misleading. There won’t be a meter of plain along the 207 kilometers planned with the most rugged climb, the Salita dei Cappuccini, located just 6,000 meters from the final banner. The 35 kilometers against the clock in the land of Romagna, from Savignano al Rubicone to Cesena, flat as a billiard table, will close a first segment of the Giro which should give us a well-defined ranking.
As has become the tradition of the pink race in recent times, the second week will be less intense. It will start again from Scandiano, homeland of Professor Romano Prodi, to descend to Versilia in Viareggio. It will then be the turn, Wednesday 17 May, of Tortona where Serse Coppi will be celebrated, whose centenary of birth this year occurs. These two stages will most likely both end with bunch sprints.
This will not be the case for the 179 kilometers from Bra to Rivoli which will highlight all the splendid morphological characteristics of Piedmont with a finale, characterized by the ascent to 1,007 meters of Colle Braida, which will select the peloton. The day after there will be the only trespass in the thirteenth stage from Borgofranco d’Ivrea to Crans Montana in Switzerland, the first of the three five-star fractions. There will be to climb, in order, Colle San Bernardo, the third foreign Cima Coppi in the history of the Giro, at an altitude of 2469, followed by the Croix de Coi which will precede the final surge towards the finish line. This is the only fraction of the second week that could change the general classification.
It will be followed by the return to Italy the next day, from Sierre to Cassano Magnago, the birthplace of the two-time Giro winner Ivan Basso, where there is likely to be a bunch sprint. Finally, to close this phase, there will be the Seregno–Bergamo, in the intentions of Mauro Vegni a re-proposition in Orobic sauce of the exciting Turin event of twelve months ago.
The second five-star stage from Sabbio Chiese to Monte Bondone on Tuesday 23 May will open the decisive phase of the pink race. Before reaching the finish line made immortal by Charly Gaul in 1956, the runners will face four GPMs in the context of 200 kilometers of which only the first third will be flat. On the contrary, the subsequent stage from Pergine Valsugana to Caorle will be the penultimate appointment for the sprinters before the two stages in the Dolomites. The Oderzo-Val di Zoldo will act as an icebreaker, which will come alive only in the last 35 kilometers with the ascent to the Forcella Cibiana, before the arrival in Palafavera.
The main dish will arrive the next day in the celebratory hamlet Longarone – Tre Cime di Lavaredo, in which the more than 3,000 dead of the never punished Vajont Dam disaster of 9 October 1963 will be remembered. This should be the day when the fate will be decided of the 106th Giro d’Italia. If this were not the case, the unprecedented uphill time trial from Tarvisio to Monte Lussari will act as authentic extra time on Saturday 27 May, a fraction that will honor the memory of Enzo Cainero, the creative patron of Tavagnacco always capable of getting the most out of the passages in Friuli. It will close in the Capital with the last sprint in the shadow of the Colosseum after a mega transfer that certainly won’t raise the morale of a tired caravan. Let’s just hope it’s worth it and, above all, we’re spared yet another examination of the pitiful state of Roman roads.
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