2021 Giro d’Italia to start in Turin and finish in Verona

The Grande Partenza of the 104th Giro d’Italia will take place on Saturday May 8th in Turin and finish in Verona on Sunday May 30th

Richard Carapaz celebrated his GC victory in Verona’s amphitheatre two years ago, the last Grande Partenza in Turin was in 2011 when the late Michele Scarponi won following the disqualification of Alberto Contador.

The route will then cross the Tuscan coast, with a stop in Ravenna to commemorate the 700th birthday of the poet Dante Alighieri.

According to the latest rumours, the 2021 Giro will include the climb of the Colle Fauniera, 25 kilometres at 7% nicknamed the Colle dei Morti. It has featured once before in 1999.

The climbs of the Monte Zoncolan and Tre Cime di Lavaredo are also rumoured. The Monte Zoncolan is one of the toughest climbs, 10.1 km at 11.9% with gradients up to 22%.

When the Giro last visited the Zoncolan in 2018, Chris Froome soloed to victory.

A tribute to Fausto Coppi is also rumoured, the 177 km stage could start and finish in Cuneo and include the climb of the Madonna del Colletto di Valdieri.

The Zoncolan is rumoured to be stage 14 and Stage 16 is rumoured to be a summit finish on Tre Cime di Lavaredo. The 6.2 kilometres climb goes up at an average of 12.4%, and would be the eighth time to be included in the upcoming Giro this May. Former winners are Felice Gimondi (1967), Eddy Merckx (1968), José Manuel Fuente (1974), Lucho Herrera (1989), Beat Breu (1981), Riccardo Ricco (2007) and Vincenzo Nibali (2013).

Already invited are all 19 men’s WorldTour teams and Alpecin-Fenix also receiving an invite as the top-ranked ProTour team from 2020.

Vying for the two remaining wildcard invites are the French-based Akréa-Samsic, the Russian-based and Gazprom-RusVelo, along with four Italian ProTeam squads.

While Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec, Bardiani CSF Faizanè, Vini Zabù-Brado-KTM, and EOLO-Kometa would like to finalize their early-May racing calendars, they will have to wait a few more days to do so, with hopes of racing in their home country’s grand tour.

Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) won the maglia rosa in 2020 and is expected to return to defend his victory this year. He could have the support of Egan Bernal as he recoveries from his back problems.

Vincenzo Nibali and Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Alexandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech), Fabio Aru (Qhubeka Assos) and Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) are all expected to ride.

The full route and start list will be revealed on February 4th.