The Giro 2024 was presented in Trento. It will leave Turin on May 4th – the day that marks the 75th anniversary of the Gran Torino tragedy: the plane carrying Valentino Mazzola’s crew crashes at the foot of the Superga Basilica, 31 dead, 18 of them Footballers from Turin – and will finish in Rome on the 26th. Six high finishes – Oropa, Prati di Tivo, Cusano Mutri, Mottolino, Monte Pana and Brocon – and two more mountain stages, Sappada and Bassano del Grappa. A total of 3,321 kilometers in 21 stages, including 70 kilometers of time trials.
The total positive difference will be only 42,900 meters, almost 9,000 meters less than in 2023 and 8,000 less than in 2022.
In the Giro of the 22nd, Jai Hindley’s, there was limited movement in the Marmolada on the final day; Roglic’s 23rd didn’t even have that: there were only differences, and not that many, on the terrible final day time trial climb to Mount Lussari. In a cycling world full of electric nervousness and personalities like Vingegaard, Pogacar, Van Aert, Roglic, Evenepoel or Van der Poel, who love to turn the road and mountain passes into a boxing ring every day, the Giro remained intact, a stone, anchored in stories from the last century, cycling of patience and waiting, surpassed by cyclists by its lush landscapes, by its bright and beautiful Dolomites, by each of its slopes in Abruzzo, by its walls in the Marche. It was a consolation for more mature fans, a bewilderment for young people who will surely cheerfully applaud the design of the 2024 Giro, which emerged as a betrayal of traditions considered sacrosanct.
The organizers see the decline in television viewership and also declare that they are tired of the Giros being closed until the last day, and that the cyclists – as much as I would like to attack today I will not attack, tomorrow I will, there are still many standing Hard days ahead – justify it There was so much hardness concentrated in the last week that it would be stupid to waste energy beforehand.
In the 24th, the artists believe this will not happen. Calculation prohibited. As if it were a Vuelta or a Tour of recent years, the second day will already have a difficult arrival at the summit, namely that of the Oropa sanctuary of the suffering of Indurain in 1993, the ecstasy of Pantani in 1999. And as if it were any race, the last week will not be the most difficult, the most brutal, the calmest, the accumulation and flooding, but rather something calm. Only three of its six days will be mountainous, ma non troppo, and without scary names: a Monte Pana on Tuesday, with a passage through the Stelvio Pass at the exit; a double Brocon on Wednesday and a double portion of Monte Grappa on Saturday before catching a charter flight to Rome in Treviso. As a nod to the future, a Tuscan stage with Sterrato in Strade Bianche style (the sixth, Viareggio-Rapolano Terme). As animation, a large stage in Abruzzo (the eighth that ends in Prati di Tivo); as a relic of the past, the 15th, the 220 kilometers, seven hours by bike through the Alps to Livigno, to the border with Switzerland, the 18 kilometers of the endless Forcola di Livigno, with customs passage and the crazy end of 1,800 meters on the Mottolino ski slope and its ramps at 18%: 5,200 meters of positive slope for the body.
To top it all off, there were 70 kilometers of time trials, split into two sessions: 38 groundbreaking kilometers in Perugia on day seven and 32 very flat kilometers along Lake Garda on day 14.
It wouldn’t be a bad plan if I had a good partner. The solution to the Giro’s second major problem, its low turnout, appears to be out of the hands of the organizers, who believe that the best riders – the great four: Vingegaard, Roglic, Pogacar and Evenepoel – are the only ones on their minds Tour and you consider it impossible to win both races in the same year as there are only four weeks between them.
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