Stage 21: Cernusco sul Naviglio to Milan

Date: October 25, 2020 

Distance: 15.7km 

Stage start: 13:20pm CEST

Stage type: Time Trial

It’s Super Sunday, when the Giro’s finale will be competing for attention with the men’s and women’s editions of Paris-Roubaix and the Tourmalet summit finish at the Vuelta a España. Given these clashes, it’s perhaps appropriate that this final time trial is shorter than the equivalent tests in recent editions of the corsa rosa, extending to just 15.7km into the centre of Milan from the suburb of Cernusco sul Naviglio to the north-east. 

Totally flat, the riders will find themselves on straight, wide roads once they’ve negotiated three 90-degree turns in the opening few hundred metres. From that point until the intermediate time check at 10.3km, there isn’t a bend of note. A chicane just on the approach to that checkpoint will provide a brake, but once through it the riders will be quickly to full speed again until they’re in the very heart of Milan.

There are three tight turns in the final kilometre, the last of them on the cobbled section that runs all the way into the Piazza del Duomo, where the 103rd Giro d’Italia will finish.

Will its final test produce the kind of dramatic turnaround that we witnessed at the 2020 Tour de France? Unless the time gaps between the overall contenders are very small, it’s unlikely anyone is likely to gain or cede a significant advantage in a time trial that will be completed in little more than a quarter of an hour. It should, instead, offer a chance to the time trial specialists for a final shot at a stage win, and effectively act as a very high-speed lap of honour for the rider in the maglia rosa.