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Take a deep breath.
🗺 Here is the Route of the Giro d’Italia 2023.
.
Fai un respiro profondo.
🗺 Ecco il Percorso del Giro d’Italia 2023.#Giro @ENIT_italia pic.twitter.com/65GoIgTT7h— Giro d’Italia (@giroditalia) October 17, 2022
The route of the 2023 Giro d’Italia was revealed in Milan yesterday, confirming two things that cycling fans had long since suspected: that Remco Evenepoel will win his second grand tour next May, and that, for race organisers, the climate crisis and environmental concerns come a distant second to spectacular finales in beautiful places.
Next year’s Corsa Rosa was initially expected to finish in the north-eastern port city of Trieste, following an absolutely brutal and potentially decisive mountain time trial on Monte Lussari the day before.
However, as we reported a few weeks ago (and confirmed in yesterday’s route presentation), that plan was shelved in favour of a scenic circuit race around Rome – and a 750-kilometre transfer from the Slovenian border.
It will be the first time that the Giro has returned to the Italian capital since 2018’s controversial final stage – when the riders complained about the safety of the circuit, prompting the GC times to be neutralised – but, as cycling author Herbie Sykes pointed out on Twitter, this Roman holiday appears to be something of a spectacular send-off for race director Mauro Vegni, who is rumoured to be stepping down from his role at RCS Sport after ten years at the helm.
This, I suspect, will be Vegni’s last Giro. A Rome finale was always his dream.
— Herbie Sykes (@herbiesykes) October 17, 2022
Nevertheless, as scenic and atmospheric as the final stage might well prove to be, a 750km transfer just for a few ceremonial laps of Rome hasn’t gone down too well with cycling’s more climate-conscious fans.
While the riders will surely fly from the penultimate stage in Tarvisio (probably from Klagenfurt in Austria or Ljubljana in Slovenia, as the nearest Italian airports are both over 140km away), team and race staff will have to endure an eight hour-plus slog by road. Fun.
The whole thing, as Twitter has pointed out, all feels a touch unnecessary:
This Giro d’Italia flight just for the final stage in Rome is WAY too much.
— Gregor Brown (@gregorbrown) October 17, 2022
Giro 2023 route is batshit. They are going to make the riders and team staff travel from Monte Lussari in northern Italy to Rome for the final ceremonial stage – over 700km. Totally unnecessary.
— UK hot food chat (@UKhotfoodchat) October 17, 2022
700k transfer to run a crit around the absurdly bad streets of Rome on the final day of the giro.
RCS always delivers https://t.co/5KjLoeNDOK
— Alex Keck (@AlexKeck) October 17, 2022
Or God forbid, design a route that ended nearer to Rome. Suppose that’s not as easy when you want high mountains at the finish?
— Colin Lynch PLY (@FormerTTchamp) October 18, 2022
(To be fair, they tried that before – in 2009, the year Denis Menchov won, despite falling off his TT bike in Rome – and it was deathly dull…)
Someone bold at the UCI needs to implement a max transfer distance rule for GTs – with only one exception per race (to accommodate foreign starts). Even that system needs looking at. Maybe e one foreign start every 3 years allowed.
Sadly, won’t happen.
— Colin Lynch PLY (@FormerTTchamp) October 18, 2022
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