From Marano Lagunare to the Sanctuary of Castelmonte: presented the Friulian stage of the Giro d’Italia

CIVIDAL. Here is the profile of the 19th stage of the Giro d’Italia 2022 edition number 105. The Marano Lagunare-Castelmonte, a first for both locations, was presented together with the other stages of the Giro d’Italia waiting for tomorrow, Wednesday November 10, the pink race unveiled on the web in stages, is completed with the most anticipated mountain stages in the edition that from 6 to 29 May it will take the runners from Budapest, via Sicily to Verona, passing through the Piedmontese Alps, Valtellina with Mortirolo and the grand finale in the penultimate stage on the Dolomites and in particular on the Marmolada, aka Passo Fedaia.

Challenging

The Friulian fraction will be moving, but challenging to say the least, with 3,200 meters in altitude. Needless to say, this is the first ever linked to the Giro d’Italia for Marano lagunare. A nice assist for regional tourism thanks to live TV coverage in nearly two hundred countries around the world. The enchanting landscapes of the lagoon, the nearby beach of Lignano at the dawn of a new tourist season.

“Kilometer zero”, that is to say the actual start of hostilities, in Carlino and off to the hills and the first ascent of the day, Villanova delle Grotte. The Giro returns to the Torre and Cornappo valleys, as the patron of the Friulian stages Enzo Cainero had promised, after the first in the pink race slipped in the autumn due to the pandemic of 2020.

This time the caravan will point to Slovenia via the easy Tanamea Pass and will enter the Isonzo valley which it will leave after Caporetto. Here is the third mountain grand prix, the unprecedented one for the pink uphill race that leads from Caporetto via Livek to Luico, a few from Cepletischis and from Italy, basically under Matajur, to Passo Solarie.

It is a climb of over 10 km characterized, after the small Slovenian village, by slopes of more than 10 percent. The finale, skirting the trenches of the Great War in a scenario that was the scene of the Caporetto route in the autumn of 1917, will be very suggestive. On the one hand, the runners, probably the protagonists of an escape from afar, to battle, under the Soča valley. Then the caravan, in a stage that will not exceed 180 km, will return to Italy for the grand finale in the Natisone Valleys. Stregna, San Leonardo downhill to Cividale, spectacular passage in the center, Natisone over the Ponte del Diavolo and off with the final climb to the Sanctuary.

The gym for Friulian cyclists

Castelmonte, the traditional route from Carraria is a bit of a symbolic climb for cyclists from Friuli, in the Udine area. With its 9 km, the counter-slope section before Mezzomonte that makes even 500 meters of altitude liars, is an ascent of great charm. The Giro covered that climb downhill at the beginning of the Udine-San Daniele, one of the two Friulian stages from the autumn 2020 pink race, just over a year ago. Needless to say: imagining big names on that climb is practically impossible, it is too easy to make a selection, but it will probably be decisive to launch who among the probable fugitives will win the fraction.

The big ones? The pink jersey? They will think of the Marmolada the next day. At the Sanctuary, however, there will be a show, in addition to the usual advertising cart for the popular place of worship and the nearby Cividale, an increasingly tourist city thanks to its inclusion in the Unesco circuit.

The runners

We are in November, this is the time for the runners to spend their holidays, but also to start planning their goals for next season. Seen the path, the one drawn by Enzo Cainero and by his collaborators, above all his “cartographer” the Osovan Vincenzo Candoni, it seems the ideal stage for the runner on the run par excellence, the 35-year-old expert from Bujese Alessandro De Marchi of Israel and for the other Friulian the 26 year old codroipese of Bora Hangrohe, Matteo Fabbro, provided that the latter, as happened in the last pink race, is not intended for his team to guard the man of the standings.

21 stages in 21 laps

We will see, the fact is that on May 27, 2022 in Friuli the twenty-first fraction of the pink race will be staged in the last twenty-one editions. A small-big record for a small region to the north east like Friuli Venezia Giulia.