The 2025 Giro d’Italia begins in the Albanian port city of Durres, before heading south and wrapping around to the finish in the heart of the capital city, Tirana.
It is a hilly opening day with a category two climb (13km, 5.1 per cent) halfway through the 160km route, and a loop that twice takes on the category-three Surrel climb before a fast descent to the finish.
On the surface it looks like a day for one of the puncheurs in the pack, like Wout van Aert or Tom Pidcock, even if the Yorkshireman has said victory on the opening day is “unlikely”. But there are two intermediate sprints shortly before the first climb which will lure the fastest riders to the front, and if their teammates can drag them over the tough Gracen climb then the sprinters will be the ones to beat come the finish in Tirana. Watch out for the 2019 world champion Mads Pedersen, who has the legs to clear the climb and out-sprint the rest in a shootout to the line.
It has the look of an entertaining and unpredictable start to what should be a compelling Giro, with no Tadej Pogacar to dominate the field as he did so convincingly last year. Primoz Roglic is the natural favourite in Pogacar’s absence, but this is a wide open race for the maglia rosa with Pogacar’s young UAE Emirates teammate Juan Ayuso a serious challenger to Roglic – “It would be a disappointment not to finish in the top three,” Ayuso said this week – while Adam Yates, Simon Yates, Michael Storer, Jai Hindley, Richard Carapaz, Antonio Tiberi, Egan Bernal and Derek Gee are all potential podium contenders.
Pidcock will be looking to pinch stage wins along the way for his new team Q36.5, while the points classification could be contested by fast men like Pedersen, Australia’s Kaden Groves, Ireland’s Sam Bennett and Dutch sprinter Olav Kooij. Kooij is the Visma-Lease a Bike teammate of Van Aert, and will be hoping Van Aert can steal some of the more hilly stage wins from Pedersen to aid his cause – just like this one.
Route map and profile
Start and finish time
Stage one begins at around 12.30pm BST and is set to conclude at around 4.15pm.
Prediction
This might come down to which of the peloton’s power riders can get over the climbs near the front of the race to be in the hunt in a bunch sprint. Mads Pedersen is a contender but let’s go with Wout van Aert, who certainly has the all-round qualities to scale the ascents and out-pace his rivals to the line.
