TORTONA. Tortona will host the arrival of the eleventh stage of the 106th Giro d’Italia, which will take place from 6 to 28 May 2023, ending in Rome. The news had been circulating for a few weeks now, but the official announcement arrived only on Monday afternoon, when the organizers unveiled the route of the next Corsa Rosa at the “Giorgio Gaber” opera house in Milan.
The appointment in Tortona is for Wednesday 17 May, at the beginning of the second week of racing: the tadpoles will start from Camaiore, in Versilia, then they will travel the Ligurian Levant, and then enter Piedmont, with the passages at Voltaggio, Gavi, Serravalle Scrivia, then Tortona. The fraction, with its 218 kilometers, like the 7th stage, the Capua-Gran Sasso, the two longest scheduled, will be mainly flat, with the exception of the mountain Grand Prix of Passo del Bracco, Colla di Boasi and Passo of Castagnola.
In this way, the Corsa Rosa commemorates the 7th anniversary of the fifth and last Giro won by Fausto Coppi in 1953 (the edition of the company on the Stelvio) and the centenary of the birth of his brother Serse. The following day the “tadpoles” will leave Bra in the direction of Rivoli.
The Piedmontese city becomes the stage for the third time in its history. The first occasion was in 1989, with the 19th stage Meda-Tortona (the following day the Voghera-La Spezia fraction was disputed), won by the Danish Jesper Skibby. The late Frenchman Laurent Fignon, who won that edition, wore the pink jersey. The second occasion just five years ago, in 2017, when the Colombian sprinter Fernando Gaviria won the 13th stage, the Reggio Emilia-Tortona, which also crossed all the Oltrepo from Stradella to Voghera.
It will start with an individual time trial of 18.4 kilometers from Fossacesia Marina to Ortona, in Abruzzo, which will develop almost entirely on the Costa dei Trabocchi cycle path, obtained from the old seat of the Adriatic railway, which during the year is a place of entertainment. for cyclists and runners. It will point south, up to Melfi, then go back north from the Tyrrhenian coast to Naples. From the Campania capital we go towards the Adriatic, then Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Liguria, Piedmont. There is an encroachment in Crans Montana, Switzerland, and the memory of the Vajont tragedy of 9 October 1963, with the departure from Longarone. –
FRANCO SCABROSETTI