The 2025 Giro d'Italia starts outside Italy's borders for the 15th time with its Grande Partenza in Albania, but thoughts are already turning to future foreign starts.
Friday afternoon sees the peloton battle for the first pink jersey of 2025 on the roads of Albania's capital, Tirana. The nation follows in the wheeltracks of Greece, Denmark, Northern Ireland, Israel, Hungary and more in hosting a Giro start.
Belgium hosted a single Giro Grande Partenza, all the way back in 1973, when Eddy Merckx won the race for a fourth time. Could it be in line for another?
Reporters from La Dernière Heure posed the question to RCS Sport managing director Paolo Bellino on Thursday.
"Ah, Belgium, it would be a dream to come back. Belgium is a cycling country, and anyone who organises sporting events, especially in cycling, would love to have the chance to do something in Belgium," Bellino replied.
"Your country has already proven its know-how and hospitality. So yes, we would be very happy to come back to Belgium."
With the Tour de France having travelled to Belgium for five Grand Départs in its history, recent starts coming in Liège and Brussels, the Giro seems long overdue a trip north.
It last visited the country for a stage finish and start early in the 2002 race following the Grande Partenza in the Dutch city of Groningen.
Bringing the race back to Belgium would, of course, require politicians getting involved and for an official bid to be made. There's no indication of that being the case just yet, though Bellino admitted that he has recently met with a national leader.
"I ate with one of them last night, but I won't tell you where I was," he told La Dernière Heure.
In any case, any trip back to Belgium would likely have to join the queue of foreign nations hoping to host the Giro. The Middle Eastern nations of the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be next in line to bring the race to their shores.
The UAE has a pre-existing relationship with RCS Sport, with the organisers running the UAE Tour and the UAE Tour Women. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund was linked with sponsorship of the Giro d'Italia pink jersey, and though the deal never materialised, it demonstrates that there is interest in working together more.
Last May, Cyclingnews reported that plans for a 2026 Giro start in the Saudi tourist resort of AlUla had been "scrapped or at least put on hold", with regional instabilities and ongoing construction of hotels and facilities cited.
Het Nieuwsblad reports that RCS Sport "seems to be looking in the Middle East" for hosts of the 2026 and 2027 editions of the Giro. AlUla and the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, are mentioned as candidates.
As ever, more information will emerge throughout May as journalists in Italy pose questions to the Giro's organisers. But planning for the next foreign start is no doubt already underway, even as this year's race begins.
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