Male Team 06 - 29 May
Giro d'Italia
3437 Kilometers 21 Stages
Just like last year, the race is shown live in its entirety, across all 21 stages. Eurosport and GCN will offer pictures across their different platforms.
There will be 10-6-4″ at every road stage finish + 3-2-1″ at the Traguardi Volanti, one per stage.
The Abarca Sports organisation has four overall victories in the Giro (1992, 1993, 2014, 2019), as well as 23 stage wins in the ‘Corsa Rosa’. The full list is available on our website’s History section.
In such a special year for Alejandro Valverde, the one in which he will unpin the numbers from his back, #LaÚltimaBala will make a stop in a land which the Spanish ‘Campionissimo’ and his family are so passionate about, Italy, and the Giro. He’s only ridden it once -in 2016-, yet the taste it left on him was so nice that he wants to pay a second, and final, visit in 2022. You can be certain about one thing: neither him nor his team will leave this race empty-handed, the mixture of youth and experience on the Movistar Team’s roster for the race hoping to make this May another exciting one for the Blues.
The Giro will be jumping from one place to another early in its 2022 route. The first three stages will be held in Hungary, this year’s ‘Grande Partenza’ a delayed event due to the pandemic, starting with a very intriguing finish in Visegrád on Friday 6th, over 5km at 5% average gradient. Saturday 7th, riders will take on what would usually be an opening ITT and will this time be stage two, barely 9km in Budapest yet with a 1.5km, 6% finishing slope. A sprinters’ stage in the Balaton lake will end this Magyar tournée on Sunday 8th.
Riders will then fly towards Sicily, a two-stage journey this time – while featuring no less than the Etna (almost 23km at 6% avg.) already on stage four (Tuesday 10th). Back to the continent, and following two sprints in Messina and Scalea, the peloton will take on an interesting first mid-mountain stage to Potenza on Friday 13th, over the climbs of Passo Colla (Cat-2), Monte Sirino (Cat-1), Monte Scuro (Cat-2) and La Sellata (Cat-2), the latter 24km from the end. It will preceed a really exciting second weekend of racing, with a lumpy, semi-urban circuit course in Napoli (Saturday 14th) following by the second big mountain finish (Sunday 15th): the Blockhaus (14km at 8.5%), anticipated by the Passo Lanciano (10km, 7.5%).
The second week of racing will be quite the contrast from other modern Giros: si any punch finisher’s team is able to control things on the way to Jesi (stage 10; Tuesday 17th) and the breakaway doesn’t make it, we could well end up with four consecutive ‘volate’, because the finishes in Reggio Emilia (Wednesday 18th), Genova (Thursday 19th) and Cuneo (Friday 20th) are all flat. Things will heat up, though, on Saturday 20th, with a spectacular circuit in and around Torino that will include the Colle di Superga -we missed it at Milano-Torino this year!-, the Colle della Maddalena and the Parco del Nobile GPM with just 4km to go. Sunday 22nd will mark a return to the usual essence of the Giro, with three serious climbs – Pila-Les Fleurs (Cat-1), Verrogne (Cat-1) and the finish to Cogne (Cat-2) – before the last rest day.
Tuesday 24th May will bring the Queen stage, the ‘tappone’ you don’t want to miss, of this year’s Giro: Goletto di Cadino (Cat-1), Mortirolo (Cat-1) from its Edolo side, Teglio -non-categorized- and the Valico di Santa Cristina (Cat-1), of bitter memory for our organisation, on the way Aprica -a long 202km trek-. And since second efforts are even harder and make more differences, stage 17 on Wednesday 25th could be a cracker, over Tonale -again, a non-categorized GPM- from the very start + Giovo (Cat-3), Vetriolo (Cat-1) and Monterovere (Cat-1), 8km before the end in Lavarone.
The decisive weekend kicks off on Friday 27th, with four other rated climbs, a brief ride through Slovenia -and the grueling Kolovrat (Cat-1)- and a finish up the Santuario di Castelmonte (Cat-2). Huge mountains await on Saturday 28th, not a long one (167km) yet with three brutal, and traditional, ascents at San Pellegrino (Cat-1), Passo Pordoi (Cima Coppi) and the Marmolada (Cat-1). The race will end on Sunday 29th with a 17.4km ITT in Verona, well known by the main contenders, with the climb of Torrecella Massimiliana and the finish into the Arena – the very same place where we conquered our last Giro GC win to date. Can you imagine…?