2023 Giro d’Italia seems tailor made and tempting for Remco Evenepoel

The route of the 2023 Giro d’Italia will be revealed in Milan on Monday, with next year’s Corsa Rosa clearly designed to convince Remco Evenepoel to target the maglia rosa and so delay any Tour de France ambition until 2024.

Race organisers always deny designing their race route for one specific rider but the Giro d’Italia has often favoured Vincenzo Nibali over the last decade, while the Tour de France has reduced the amount of time trials and removed a team time trial to give the French riders a chance of competing for victory.    

The 2023 Giro d’Italia route has not been leaked in the Italian media but website Cicloweb.it have gathered a number of details to design what is widely expected to be the race route. The 2023 Giro d'Italia will start on Saturday May 6 and end on Sunday May 28.

The three weeks of racing is expected to include close to 70 kilometres of individual time trialling, with the mountain stages acting as a counter-balance to the three time trials rather than a advantage to the climbers.  That should tip the race in favour of Evenepoel but also attract other contenders such as Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma).

The Giro d’Italia has often seen young riders win their first Grand Tour in Italy before targeting the Tour de France, and an Evenepoel presence and possible victory would continue that tradition and ease RCS Sport’s envy of their French rivals.  A Giro d'Italia victory would be a perfect stepping stone for Evenepoel as his team develops a competitive Grand Tour set-up and squad around the talented young Belgian.     

RCS Sport have already announced that the 2023 Corsa Rosa will begin with an 18.4km individual time trial along the Adriatic coast of the central Abruzzo region, with further detailed revelations suggesting there will be another time trial on the pan-flat roads of Romagna and a final 18km mountain time trial to Monte Lussari in the far northeast near Austria and Slovenia.

Business rather than the environment appears to have won out on the location of the final stage, with an initial agreement with Trieste ripped up and replaced with a more lucrative deal for a finish in the capital Rome. That means the riders and Giro caravan will face a 750km transfer by car, train or plane for a final circuit stage.

The final stage in the northeast of Italy were perhaps originally designed to temp Tadej Pogacar to attempt a Giro-Tour double in 2023 but he and UAE Team Emirates have already made it clear he will return to the Tour de France in 2023 in search of revenge and a third victory after defeat to Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma in July.

"I would have liked to have seen Pogačar at the Giro next year, but he’ll definitely do the Tour," Vegni admitted recently.  

"However, I wouldn’t rule out the participation of Primož Roglič or Remco Evenepoel. We don’t have news about them yet, but it will certainly be a race for them."

Evenepoel has hinted he will stick to his planned career path of riding the Giro d’Italia in 2023. QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team manager Patrick Lefevere seems keen to follow the same plan but has pointed out that the team’s sponsors would prefer to see Evenepoel at the Tour de France, even if he struggles on his debut in the sport’s biggest race.

RCS Sport have occasionally paid teams a significant fee to entice them to send their biggest riders to the race and perhaps see paying Evenepoel and Lefevere as an investment that will boost the profile of the Giro d’Italia and global interest in the race.

Evenepoel endured a difficult Grand Tour debut in the 2021 Giro d’Italia as he returned from his hip injury caused by his Il Lombardia crash. He went close to wearing the maglia rosa in the first week and challenged eventual winner Egan Bernal but faded and eventually quit the race before the decisive mountain stages. 

The young Belgian proved he is a Grand Tour rider by winning the Vuelta a Espana and would return to Italy as a very different rider and as the 2023 favourite for the maglia rosa.

Cyclingnews will have full coverage of Monda'y's route presentation, with news, reaction and analysis from Stephen Farrand and Barry Ryan in Milan.

The likely 2023 Giro d’Italia route - week 1

The Italian Grande Partenza and a first week in the warmth of the south of Italy seems an ideal way to start the 2023 Giro d’Italia. Evenepoel could perhaps win the opening time trial and gain time on his overall rivals before conceding the maglia rosa to someone happy for the early glory and the southern loop into Puglia, Molise, Calabria and Campania.  

After the start in Abruzzo, a flat stage will take the race to San Salvo for a sprint finish, with a hilly finale on stage 3 to Melfi and/or possibly an uphill finish to Lago Laceno, which last hosted the Giro in 2012.

The first week is likely to end with a return to Naples for a circuit stage, via a finish in Sorrento and possibly a ride along the Amalfi coastline in homage to former Giro organiser Carmine Castellano.

The first mountain finish has already been confirmed at Campo Imperatore near the snow-covered Gran Sasso in the Abruzzo Apennines, where Simon Yates claimed victory in 2018 and Marco Pantani triumphed in 1999, before he was later disqualified for a high blood haematocrit level leading to his tragic demise.

It will probably be the longest stage of the 2023 Giro at 218km, meaning there will be limited transfer stages next May.  

A ride north via Romagna, Tuscany and Piemonte - week 2

The second week will be raced in central and northwest Italy, via Le Marche, Umbria, Tuscany and Piemonte, and then visit the Swiss Alps.

The second time trial should be on stage 9 between Savignano sul Rubicone and Cesena, with the 30 to 40km cronometro likely to be decisive in shaping the overall classification. Crossing the Rubicon river could be a point of no return for the poorest time trialist, with Evenepoel perhaps able to gain two minutes on some rivals.

Tuscany returns for a sprint finish on the Tyrrhenian coast before the route heads north via some Ligurian climbs and into Piemonte for finishes in Tortona or Acqui Terme, and then perhaps Rivoli near Turin. Both favour breakaways or teams desperate for a sprint win.

Stage 13 is set to climb up to the Crans-Montana ski resort in Switzerland, where Laurent Fignon won in the yellow jersey on the 1984 Tour de France. The long stage should cross the 2,473-metre-high Gran San Bernardo and award the Cima Coppi prize on the highest pass of the 2023 race. The Gran San Bernardo climb is long but not overly steep, again favouring the likes of Evenepoel more than the pure climbers.

The Giro will quickly return to Italy for the second rest day in northern Italy before the final and decisive third week on the road to the east.

East and into the mountains for the finale - week 3

Bergamo will host stage 15 before Monday’s rest day, with the hilly 180km stage a kind of mini-Il Lombardia into the hills north of the cycling-mad city.

The riders then head across eastern Lombardy and into Trentino via Lake Garda for a finish atop Monte Bondone overlooking Trento. Monte Bondone is synonymous with Charly Gaul’s snow-covered win back in 1956, and was last climbed in 2006.

The climbers get a chance to recover on stage 17 with a flat ride to the Venetian coast and sprint finish in Caorle expected, before returning into the mountains and southern Dolomites. Stage 18 should include the 10km-long, 10% Passo Cibiana in the finale before an expected finish at the Rifugio Palafavera in the shadows of the Veneto Dolomites.

The mountain trittico of stages is expected to include a finish on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the historic climb where Vincenzo Nibali won in the snow to cap his first overall victory in 2013. The early climbs are unlikely to be as severe as back then to avoid any last-minute changes due to the bad weather but the finish will climb up to 2,300 metres. It will be the last mountain stage of the 2023 Corsa Rosa.

The last decisive stage comes on Saturday, May 27, with the mountain time trial from Tarvisio to Monte Lussari in the far north-east.  

Vegni’s hope was that its proximity to the Slovenian border would persuade Pogačar to ride the Giro and attract thousands of Slovenian cycling fans. In his absence, it still promises a thrilling and spectacular finale to the race. The opening 10km are on flat roads, while the final 7km climb at 14%, perhaps sparking bike changes mid-stage.

Whoever pulls on the maglia rosa at the spectacular religious site atop Monte Santo di Lussari will then be crowned the overall race winner in Rome, some 750km to the south on Sunday, May 28.