UDINE. The Giro d’Italia 2022 will return to Friuli Venezia Giulia for the third year in a row after the “occasional” break of 2019 and will do so with a fascinating, cross-border stage, perfectly embedded in the triptych that will be the grand finale of the race and, listen listen, a very tasty aperitif at what promises to be another feast of great cycling in the spring of 2023 with the Lussari expected for years at the debutante ball.
But let’s go in order, which is better, warning the reader to handle with care, a lot of care, these lines written by ticking not on a headboard of a PC, but on a dozen eggs that risk breaking at every jolt. Out of metaphor, RCS will present the pink race in a month, after the Giro di Lombardia and until those days any change will still be possible.
But turning, and even pedaling, in the area we can tell you that the Friulian stage will go from the sea to the mountains, more precisely the insidious roughness of the Natisone valleys where, after the first time in 2016 with the arrival in Cividale after the 4 hills from Porzûs in Drenchia, skimming the Matajur, a peak that is always off limits due to logistical obstacles, and the autumn landscape in the Giro 2020 post lockdown of not even a year ago, would return to the map of the most beautiful race in the world for the third time.
It is no mystery that Enzo Cainero, the organizer of the Friulian stages who has now put the bad summer cycling accident behind him, is aiming for a return to the Natisone Valleys. Needless to say anything else, the director of the Giro, Mauro Vegni, in Friuli again last Sunday for the 60th anniversary of the Frecce, would not like.
The only thing he says, mockingly, is that it will be a 180km “duretta” fraction. Lignano starting point? Not necessarily, certainly the caravan will cross the hilly Friuli, entering Slovenia through the Torre valley and the Tanamea. Then the demanding climb that from Caporetto, via Luico, leads to Passo Solarie, if the work in progress on that spectacular road, in an area in 1917 that was the scene of the Battle of Caporetto, will be completed. And then the final toboggan in the Valleys, already beaten even in these seasons by the Giro women. The arrival? The square of the Castelmonte sanctuary remains in pole position.
The race will arrive from Veneto on the third to last day of competition, so the Friulian stage, except for program changes, will take place on Friday 27 May. The day after the caravan will return to Veneto for a Dolomite stage strongly desired by the President of the Region Luca Zaia, who also managed to snatch the coveted scalp of the finish line of the pink race: it will be Verona, three years after the finish. triumphal at the Arena of the Ecuadorian Carapaz. The city of Romeo and Juliet beat the competition of Milan and Rome, a “forbidden” dream of the organizers who would always like to make the capital the Paris of the Tour.
Nevegal and Valbelluna, even 50 years after the death of one of the great singers of the Giro, Dino Buzzati, should win the derby with the Tre Cime di Lavaredo and Cortina to host the showdown from which the successor of Egan Bernal, winner of 2021, will come out , before the foreseeable time trial in Verona.
Before? Departure, skipped for Covid in 2020, on 7 May from Budapest, with three in Hungary, then Sicily, Calabria, ascent and Liguria, Piedmont with three stages (Fauniera and Agnello, what peaks!) And Valle d’Aosta candidates to be the highlight of the second week. So the North-East with the “green” Fedriga-Zaia axis, not irrelevant, for the grand finale. Hoping I haven’t broken the eggs.