The 2024 Giro d'Italia route looks set to roll back the years with the earliest summit finish in over three decades for next May's Grand Tour potentially on the cards.
Reports in Italy suggest that the 2024 route will start in or near the city of Turin for the second time in four years on May 4th, and then include an ascent to the sanctuary of Oropa in the country's north-westerly Piemonte region on stage 2.
Oropa was last tackled in the 2017 Giro d'Italia, with victory going to the overall champion that year, Tom Dumoulin.
The full 2024 Giro d'Italia route is set to be unveiled in full on October 13 in the city of Trento as part of the Gazzetta dello Sport Festival of Sport celebrations, although some details of the opening week are expected to be made public on October 9.
If confirmed, Oropa would be the earliest summit finish in Giro since an ascent of Mount Etna in Sicily in 1989 on stage 2, won by Acácio da Silva. That was the same year the Portuguese racer triumphed in the Tour de France’s opening stage and then held the maillot jaune for four days.
Although there had been rumours of a Giro 2024 start as far afield as Morrocco or Belgium, the opening day's racing on Saturday, May 4th is now set to be much closer to home, in Turin where the Giro last began with an individual time trial in 2021.
According to cyclingpro.net, the most likely location is thought to be Venaria Reale on the outskirts of the city, a location which played host to the Giro's Grande Partenza of 2011 with the start of a team time trial.
13 years on, stage 1 of the 2024 Giro would then once again conclude in the centre of Turin, just like the opening day’s time trials in 2011 and 2021.
Although it's not clear if stage 1 will be a time trial, stage 2, though, will likely see a major change of pace. An uphill finish in Oropa, if confirmed, would mark the 25th anniversary of Italian cycling star Marco Pantani's victory in the same location back in the 1999 race.
A third stage in the Piemonte region is then expected to follow, according to cyclingpro.net, after which the Giro could well wind its way down the north-western side of Italy, through the regions of Savona, Genova and Lucca. A second summit finish is very possibly on the cards for stage 5.
The chances of the Giro heading much further south appear to be low, as local media in Italy’s northerly Alpine region of Brescia report that the race will be well into their neck of the woods by the end of the second week.
An undulating time trial of some 25km is widely expected in the region on May 18, followed by a summit finish at Forcola di Livigno on the Italo-Swiss border on May 19. The Giro's second rest day would then see teams staying in or near the town of Livigno.
The Giro will likely head into Italy's north-east for the third and final week. Another emblematic summit finish at Monte Grappa, on the second-last day, has also been reported, and rumours are also circulating of a finish in the town of Sappada.
What seems most likely of all is another major transfer on the last weekend and a final stage, for a second successive year, through the streets of Rome on Sunday May 26.
The route of the Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile, the first to be organised by RCS, will also be revealed on October 13. As yet no details have been leaked of the Giro d'Italia Donne, as it is popularly known, with the only current advance information being its start and finish dates of July 7-14.
The 2024 Tour de France route is also set to be revealed later this month, on October 25 in Paris. It’s already known that it will start in Firenze on June 29th and will have three Italian stages before returning to France.
Next year's Vuelta a España will also have a foreign Grand Depart, in Lisbon on August 17, but the race organisers are still said to be deciding between a full presentation of the route in December or perhaps even January 2024.
