Following the belated announcement of the 2025 Giro d’Italia route this week, two things jump out, both related to the absence of the man who won the race in such dominant fashion last year.
Firstly, Tadej Pogačar’s decision to skip this year’s edition, favouring the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España instead, looks set to make this year’s Giro d'Italia a much more open affair. With Jonas Vingegaard also confirming that he’ll prioritise those two Grand Tours, that leaves Primož Roglič as the most accomplished GC rider set to take part, and though a prolific winner of Grand Tours, his ageing legs make him a more vulnerable favourite – you certainly can’t envision him winning six stages and the GC by almost 10 minutes as his Slovenian compatriot did last year. With the Yates twins, Juan Ayuso, Richard Carapaz and Mikel Landa all having confirmed their participation, there looks set to be a refreshing amount of competition.
Then there’s the route itself, which seems to have been partly shaped in response to Pogačar’s absence. Whereas last year’s seemed geared towards convincing him to ride, with a lighter load of climbing to help make his planned Giro-Tour double more feasible, this year, the organisers revert to type with another mountain-heavy parcours. If anything, this is an even more climber-friendly route than normal, with a greater total elevation gain (52,500m) of any route since 2020 and the fewest time trialling kilometres (42.3km) since 2022.
Look closer at the route, though, and you’ll notice that this isn’t quite as conventional a climber’s Grand Tour as these stats suggest. While it’s true that plenty of time is spent in the high mountains, there is a tendency for those mountains to be tackled earlier in the stage rather than at the business end towards the finish. Where climbs are positioned is similarly important to how hard the climbs are, so this trend could drastically shape how the GC riders approach the race.
The stat that most strikingly demonstrates this is the fact that there will be only two mountain finishes in the whole race. And neither is severely hard. The first, a 12.6km effort at Tagliacozzo in the Apennines, comes at the end of stage seven and is likely to be the first major sort out of the GC riders in the race. However, its impact will be limited to small time gaps, given its modest average gradient of 5.4%. After that, there isn’t another until stage 16’s finish in the Alps atop San Valentino, and, though a hefty 17.4km long, it too climbs at a similarly manageable gradient of 6.4%
Stages 19 and 20, which together form the climactic double-header of Alpine stages that could both be considered the queen stage of the race, can almost be considered mountain top finishes. But even in these cases, the sterner tests come earlier on. A short 5km descent from the summit of Antagnod to the finish at Champoluc is the only thing preventing stage 19 from being a summit finish. Yet that climb is actually one of the least difficult of the day, the only one of the last four that's rated category two rather than category one. And though stage 20 does finish uphill, it’s a stretch to call that a mountain-top finish, given that Sestriere is only a category three climb. By contrast, the Colle delle Finestre that immediately precedes it is the Cima Coppi, and arguably the toughest mountain of the race.
This pattern is repeated not just in the final week but throughout the whole race. While stage seven might get more attention as the first summit finish of the race, it is far from being the hardest of the opening week. That status, instead, belongs to either stage three’s Lloraga, of which a category two label belies just how difficult its 10.7km ascent at 7.4% is; or stage eight’s Valico di Santa Maria Maddalena. The former is crested 38km from the stage finish, the latter, 92km.
The most challenging dirt sections of the always-entertaining Strade Bianche-style stage that closes out the first week come before the final 30km. Then in the second week, one of the hardest climbs of the whole Giro, Alpe San Pellegrino (14.2km at 8.7%), comes slap bang in the middle of stage 11. The only category one climb tackled during the first day in the Alps on stage 15, Monte Grappa (25km at 5.8%), is crested 91km from the finish. And the ascent of the famous Mortirolo on stage 17 is followed by a decent, modest category three climb and plateau to the finish.
GC contenders are therefore left with a choice of how to confront these front-loaded mountain stages: do they ride cautiously and defensively during them and wait for the rare summit finishes to make their move? Or do they use the hefty gradients of these early climbs to be bold, strike out and use them as a springboard to try and make gains?
It’s certainly something of a dilemma for the race front-runner, Primož Roglič. Though there are two early time trials on stages three and 10 for him to lay the foundation of a GC bid, the parcours are notably lacking in the kind of punchy uphill finishes that he has profited so much in each of his record-equalling four Vuelta titles. Roglič is the kind of rider who likes to keep things simple and is rarely seen on the attack before the final few kilometres of a stage. But can he afford to do so on a route like this one?
Much may depend upon how strong the GC contenders’ teams are. Though early for individual attacks, these big mid-stage climbs do provide a chance for those teams with strong climbing domestique line-ups to thin out the peloton and potentially isolate rivals in weaker teams. In this sense, Roglič is much better placed, with last year’s runner-up Dani Martínez and former winner Jai Hindley pencilled in as part of his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe line-up. Similarly, Simon Yates will have the might of his new team Visma-Lease a Bike to call upon (with the likes of Wilco Kelderman and Wout van Aert set to ride), and Adam Yates and Juan Ayuso will be part of a typically strong UAE Team Emirates; riding for EF Education-EasyPost and Soudal–Quick-Step respectively, Richard Carapaz and Mikel Landa, may be more vulnerable.
This route represents something of a gamble by the organisers – by designing so many stages that could just as easily be damp squibs as thrilling battles. But as the saying goes, it’s the riders who make the race, and if there is enough will among the GC contenders, the stage could be set for a chaotic, attacking and unpredictable Giro d’Italia.
