The official routes for the 2026 Giro d'Italia and Giro d'Italia Women will be presented on Monday, December 1 in Rome at the Ennio Morricone Auditorium Parco della Musica, race organisers RCS Sport confirmed on Tuesday.
It's the second Grand Tour route reveal for next season, after the 2026 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes routes were unveiled on October 23 in Paris. The Vuelta a España route presentation will arrive last on December 17 in Monaco.
The men's Giro d'Italia is expected to start in Bulgaria for the Grand Partenza, after the Bulgarian Tourism and Sports ministers announced approval of the country's bid in August, and RCS MediaGroup's President Urbano Cairo confirmed it last month.
It follows 2025's foreign Grande Partenza in Albania for a second Balkan start in a row. With a confirmed date, it would suggest that the formal agreement and the logistics for racing in Bulgaria are more concrete than those Albania had this time last year, which caused the route presentation to be delayed several times until eventually coming out on January 14, 2025.
The men's race is due to run from May 9 to May 25 for the Grand Tour and full start of summer racing, though it may end up starting one day earlier or finishing one day later to allow an extra rest/travel day from Bulgaria to Italy.
Meanwhile, a big change for the Giro d'Italia Women is that, after years of clashing with the opening week of the men's Tour de France, it will finally run just after the men's Giro, from May 30 to June 7, allowing for more suitable stage start times and better coverage.
While there isn't much in the way of rumours yet about what the women's route will look like, there is ample information swirling around in local Italian media which points to how May's route could look for the men's peloton.
Although Bulgaria's capital city, Sofia, looks a likely starting point for La Corsa Rosa, the full stage routes have not been announced yet, while reports currently point to Calabria in Italy's south being the landing point for the riders for stage 4 and beyond.
From here, the route is expected to return to Naples for a fifth year running, and the first proper mountaintop finish has been reportedly set up for the iconic Blockhaus to return for the first time since Jai Hindley won there in 2022.
Visma-Lease a Bike will start as the defending champions, after Simon Yates' emotional victory and righting of wrongs from seven years prior, though it's his teammate Jonas Vingegaard who has been suggested the pink jersey will be in his sights.
After his overall victory at the Vuelta a España this past September, added to his two GC wins from the Tour de France, overall victory in Rome – or Milan as has been rumoured, though looks likely now – would put him in an elite group of eight riders to have won all three of cycling's Grand Tours, alongside the likes of Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Chris Froome.
Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) could be in the running for a famous hat-trick if she chooses to start her home Grand Tour once again, after successfully defending her pink jersey in a close battle with Marlen Reusser (Movistar) this past July. With the more suitable start date, the Giro d'Italia Women could well see a boost to its usually already stacked start list, with more time to recover before the Tour de France Femmes.
