2025 Giro d'Italia stage 12 preview - A day for the sprinters in Viadana

The peloton will tackle a moderately hilly course as they embark on a 172km stage 12 from Modena to Viadana (Oglio-Po) on Thursday that is expected to be one for the sprinters.

The stage takes place on May 22, 2025 with live coverage from 13:25-17:15 CET, 12:25 - 16:15 BST or 07:25 - 11:15 EDT.

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is currently leading the GC standings after the first eleven stages of the 2025 Giro d'Italia, 31 seconds ahead of is own teammate Juan Ayuso and 1:07 ahead of third-placed Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious).

While stage 12 might not shake up the general classification in the same way as a high mountain stage or a time trial, it is still a challenging route and one that could see a breakaway on the early climbs on course, but many of the teams with powerful sprinters will want to hold the field together for a group sprint at Oglio-Po.

There are only two categorised climbs along the course, starting with the Baiso at the 40km mark. The ascent is 4.8km at an average gradient of just over 6%, and a perfect place for a determined breakaway to gain time on the peloton.

The race then continues on a gradual, lumpy incline toward the first intermediate sprint in Felina, followed by a descent into the second categorised climb, Borsea, a 3.9km climb with an average gradient of 5.5%.

The peloton then descends and follows a pan-flat final 60km, which includes a second intermediate sprint in Sant'Ilario d'Enza and a time bonus sprint in Brescello, before reaching Viadana (Oglio-Po), where the sprinters could shine.

Points leader Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) will be looking for a fourth stage win, Visma-Lease a Bike will be looking for a sprint win with Olav Kooij, and look out for other strong sprinters Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Casper van Uden (Picnic PostNL), Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Orluis Aular (Movistar), Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor), and Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech).

Climbs

• Baiso (cat. 3), km. 40.7
• Trinità (cat. 3) km. 73.4
• Rossena (cat. 3) km. 87.2

Sprints

• Sprint 1 - Felina, km. 40.5
• Sprint 2 - Sant'Ilario d'Enza, km. 118.6
• Time bonus sprint - Brescello, km. 139.1