The Vuelta a España could be set for its second Grande Partenza in Italy in four years, according to local media, with the island of Sardinia on the point of making a reported multi-million euro offer to host the opening stages of the 2028 edition.
According to the L'Unione Sarda newspaper, the Italian island is prepared to pay €7.5 million for the 2028 start along with several stages.
Sardinia has repeatedly played host to the start of the Giro d'Italia, most recently in 2017, and has its own stage race the Giro di Sardegna while the Vuelta of 2025 kicked off in Turin with a four-day run through the northwesterly region of Piemonte.
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L'Unione Sarda adds that the Regional Council is currently discussing the payments, split into two halves: €4 million in 2027 and €3.5 million in 2028.
Sardinian bike racing has its own strong connection with the Vuelta, given the most recent Italian winner was a rider born on the island: the now retired GC specialist Fabio Aru, back in 2015.
The Vuelta began its history of foreign Grand Departs comparatively late, in Lisbon in 1997, but since then it has had starts in Nimes, Utrecht and Assen and Lisbon again in 2024, as well as in Turin in 2025. This year it's set to begin in Monaco, on Sunday August 23, with a short individual time trial, the third foreign start in three editions, and seventh in its history.
Sardinia has often mooted the possibility of hosting stages of the Volta a Catalunya, given the strong cultural and linguistic connections between Catalonia and the western side of the island, although that has never actually happened. Should the 2028 Grand Depart of the Vuelta take place, it'd be the first Grand Tour start for the island in over a decade.
