Turin-Europe Summit confirmed to start at Giro d’Italia in 2024
Giro d’Italia organizers have officially confirmed that the race will start in Turin, Piedmont, in 2024, for the fourth time in its history and the second time in four years. The full route will be published on Friday this week.
As widely rumored, the race will start on Saturday, May 4 with a mass start stage from Venaria Reale on the outskirts of the city and finish in the city center, while stage 2 will finish at Oropa Peak in the northern Piedmont region.
While Stage 1 will be a repeat of the hilly 2022 stage through Turin, but with fewer climbs, Stage 2 will be the earliest major mountaintop test of the Giro d’Italia since it started in Sicily in 1989 and climbed Etna on the second day.
The Giro d’Italia started in Venaria Reale in 2011 with a team time trial, won by HTC-HighRoad. Ten years later, in 2021, when the last race started in Turin, the stage was an individual time trial, which – for the second year in a row – was won by Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers).
La Gazzetta dello Sport notes that the starting date falls exactly 75 years after the great air tragedy on Superga Hill, where on May 4, 1949 Greater Turin, crashed into a hill on the outskirts of the city, killing all 31 people on board. This year’s winner, Fausto Coppi, dedicated his victory to Ezio Loik, a midfielder who was on board the plane.
“107. edition will be a tribute to Grande Torino,” the newspaper said, and the first stage, just 136 km long, will include a half-climb of Superga to honor their memory and the anniversary of the disaster. Cat. 2 Colle Magdalena, the peak of which is 20 km from the finish line, may determine the winner and the first leader of the race.
The finish line in Oropa also commemorates an anniversary, as it falls 25 years after Marco Pantani’s famous victory on the Piedmont climb. Oropa last faced the 2017 Giro d’Italia, where victory went to this year’s overall champion, Tom Dumoulin, with only two cats. The three climbs preceding it will probably be the key moment of the second stage.
Stage three will take place in Piedmont, south of Novara to Fossano, and will likely end with a bunch sprint before stage 4, starting in Acqui Terme, moves the race out of the north-west region.
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Piedmont has a rich cycling history, with the current crop of professionals hailing from the region, including Ganna, Fabio Felline, Alessandro Covi, Matteo Sobrero and Niccolo Bonifazio. Also available is Italian cycling legend and multiple Giro winners Fausto Coppi, Constance Girardengo, Giovanni Brunero, Franco Balmamion and Giuseppe Saronni Piedmontese.
More rumors about the 2024 tour also emerged on Monday Cycloweb. The race’s heavy emphasis on time trials looks set to continue for another year, with time trials in Perugia at the end of the first week and another in Desenzano at the end of the second week.
While it is unlikely that Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) will take part in next year’s Giro for a third year in a row, such a large number of time trial kilometers – as many as 70 in total – could attract other top specialists.
That said, the Giro’s penchant for mountain climbing is once again evident: apart from the ascent of Oropa on the first weekend, a stage on Prati di Tivo in the Apennines is said to be the final curtain of the first week, and summit climbs of Monte Grappa are also likely towards the end of the third.
Even more climbing may follow just after the second rest day in Livigno, with a summit finish on Monte Pana preceded by the ascent of Stelvio, this year’s Cima Coppi, opening the third.
As in 2023, the race will end with a long transfer from northern Italy to the final sprint stage through the streets of Rome, which will take place on Sunday, May 26 next year.
The full 2024 Giro d’Italia route will be presented in its entirety on October 13 in Trento as part of the Gazzetta dello Sport Festival. The route of the Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile, the first organized by the RCS, will also be announced on October 13.
So far, no details have been released about the widely-famous Giro d’Italia Donne, with the only current preliminary information being its start and finish date of July 7-14.
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