Giro d'Italia 2025 Giro d'Italia Women, July 6-13

[Samu Cuenca]

One of the oldest races on the women’s calendar returns for its 36th edition, the second under the control of RCS. It’s been 12 months since Elisa Longo Borghini finally achieved her goal of winning the race and thereby being handed an endless trophy and a useless Suzuki (maybe not useless, but the champion should be driving around in an Italian sports car, not a Swift).

Route

Stage 1: Bergamo, 14.2 km ITT

Stage 2: Clusone - Aprica, 92 km

Stage 3: Vezza d’Oglio - Trento, 122 km

Stage 4: Castello Tesino - Pianezze (Valdobbiadene), 142 km

Stage 5: Mirano - Monselice, 120 km

Stage 6: Bellaria-Igea Marina - Terre Roveresche (Orciano di Pesaro), 145 km

Stage 7: Fermignano - Monte Nerone, 150 km

Stage 8: Forlì - Imola (Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari), 134 km

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Start list: https://firstcycling.com/race.php?r=9064&y=2025&k=8

We have a collection of 153 riders ready to go (provided that everyone is fit and healthy and that no one has been arrested at the airport like Romāns Vainšteins).

They vary in experience from Amanda Spratt who rode her first Giro in 2006, Tiffany Cromwell who will be starting for the 15th time, winner of 32 stages and three GC titles Marianne Vos, three time GC winner Anna van der Breggen, defending champion Elisa Longo Borghini and all the way down to two time Olympic triathlete Maya Kingma, who is set to ride her first ever elite race (I sure hope she won’t be doing a Taylor Knibb in the opening time trial).

Main GC favourites: Elisa Longo Borghini, Marlen Reusser, Lotte Kopecky/Anna van der Breggen (who can tie Fabiana Luperini's record with a fifth win), Juliette Labous/Évita Muzic, Pauliena Rooijakkers, Antonia Niedermaier

Main sprinters: Lorena Wiebes, Marianne Vos, Chiara Consonni, Lotte Kopecky

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Stage 1: Bergamo, 14.2 km ITT

The Grande Partenza is in Bergamo this time around, which was last visited in 2022 when Marianne Vos won her latest stage win in a sprint from a select group after the descent from Città Alta. Riders who either come from the region or live there, like Chiara Consonni, Alena Amialiusik and the third-place finisher from that stage three years ago, Silvia Persico, are all happy to be riding on home roads. Some bloke named Fausto Masnada also hails from this part of Italy.

There’s a 14 km time trial on the menu for the first day, which follows the pattern from last year. Previous organisers have preferred to kick things off with either TTTs or shorter time trials/prologues during the past decade.

The start will be at the Chorus Life (not to be mistaken for A Chorus Line, although it would have been interesting to see the riders being selected while performing a reworked version of the opening number, I Hope I Get It), which is a newly built event/music venue and shopping centre (it features a Decathlon store, for instance), in the northeastern part of the city.

After a couple of corners, the route continues in a northeastern direction along the Via Corridoni until the riders reach a roundabout in Alzano Lombardo from where they will head back in the opposite direction. However, this is not an out and back course and after 8 km they’ll turn right, before crossing the intermediate time check. The last part of the ITT features a lot more corners, turns and bends, and there’s even a short climb on a narrow road when the Via Giulio Cesare becomes the Via Basso with 4 km left.

The finish line is located on the Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, named after the socialist politician whose vocal opposition to Mussolini led to him getting assassinated by Fascists in 1924. Near the line you also come across the Torre dei Caduti, a 45m tall tower dedicated to the memory of the Bergamaschi soldiers who lost their lives during WWI. Teatro Donizetti, which originally opened in 1791, but had to be rebuilt entirely after a fire in 1797. It was renamed in 1897 in honour of the composer Gaetano Donizetti who was born and also later died in the city. Around here you’ll also find other statues and monuments, the Palazzo Frizzoni, which houses the municipal council, and a puppet museum, among other things.

It won't be visible from the course, but the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia, or Gewiss Stadium (yes, that Gewiss) as it is called nowadays, the home ground of football club Atalanta, will probably be shown on some heli shots. The club which has experienced its most successful period during the past nine years under the leadership of Gian Piero Gasperini, which has seen them finish 3rd in Serie A four times and culminated with the Europe League final win over Bayer Leverkusen last year. With Gasperini having now left for Roma and his disciple Ivan Jurić taking over, time will tell whether the glory days will continue or not.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

So the team presentation went ahead today. From what I've gathered there were a lot of fans* in attendance, Longo Borghini said hello to her former Trek teammates, Giulio Pellizzari was there to support Andrea Casagranda, and Gaia Masetti was both a human and a dog (it was supposed to say that she was greeted by them, but this sounds funnier).

Spoiler: *

 

[Didinho]

Start times for the TT?

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Start times for the TT?

They start at 11:35.
The times per rider are now listed here:
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia-women/2025/stage-1/live/startorder

 

[Samu Cuenca]

There are risks of rain and thunderstorms in Bergamo today, but it is expected to be at its worst after the stage has finished. The wind speed should be fairly gentle at around 10-11 km/h (3 m/s).

 

[Red Rick]

Is everyone ready for the ladies to do Aprica faster than the men's record?

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Last two stages are good otherwise pretty lacklustre parcours. As for the positioning on the calender, I already wrote in another thread that it's a disaster but given that they'll move it from next year on, no point in further complaining.

Given the Tour's hilariously terrible 2nd weekend it actually almost works out.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yea, Aprica as an MTF from Edolo without prior climbs is... well, they did it in 2015 like this, and 40 riders finished at +1" from PFP. Fran Cauz went on a bit of a break but couldn't make anything work, but whether that was due to the low gradients or the fact that she was Francesa Cauz and was a complete one-hit wonder (although she did OK in that, her first year with Alé-Cipollini, still being prominently visible - not that you couldn't be visible in THOSE kits - getting top 10s in big mountain stages in the Giro and the Tour de l'Ardêche, just not getting the final results, before she fell off a cliff completely in 2016) is another question. Stage 6 has the chance to be sneaky-good but otherwise "mid" would be a compliment to the route design.

 

[yaco]

Reusser's climbing level was so good in Suisse that she could nearly wrap up the Giro in today's ITT.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Yea, Aprica as an MTF from Edolo without prior climbs is... well, they did it in 2015 like this, and 40 riders finished at +1" from PFP. Fran Cauz went on a bit of a break but couldn't make anything work, but whether that was due to the low gradients or the fact that she was Francesa Cauz and was a complete one-hit wonder (although she did OK in that, her first year with Alé-Cipollini, still being prominently visible - not that you couldn't be visible in THOSE kits - getting top 10s in big mountain stages in the Giro and the Tour de l'Ardêche, just not getting the final results, before she fell off a cliff completely in 2016) is another question. Stage 6 has the chance to be sneaky-good but otherwise "mid" would be a compliment to the route design.

Yeah, I think it's a shame that their takeaway from Blockhaus seems to have been to just remove the penultimate mountain rather than make the final climb easier.

We saw in Tour de Suisse that a longer climb can explode things even if it comes very early during a stage, but here it's just an eyesore to see Tonale being wasted like this.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Henderson's time look quite good, but it's too early to tell exactly how strong it is.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Surely Spratt's intermediate time can't be right. And it turned out that it wasn't.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Not a great start from Labous, but perhaps she can claw something back before the line. Muzic also lost a fair bit of time earlier.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Labous lost another 5 seconds, but she did move up to 6th provisionally and finished faster than Wiebes. Niedermaier won't be winning today either, but will likely finish ahead of Labous.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Bike change for Chapman after only a minute. She could have been fighting for a top 10 otherwise.

Van Dam, the Canadian Kopecky/Champoussin, with another top drawer performance.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Nooijen has smashed the second part, and Schweinberger has equalled Henderson's time at T1.

And Van der Breggen goes into the lead.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Labous lost another 5 seconds, but she did move up to 6th provisionally and finished faster than Wiebes. Niedermaier won't be winning today either, but will likely finish ahead of Labous.

Well, Lieke Nooijen just beat it, comical reaction from Anna Henderson as she realises her time in the hot seat is over.

Anna VDB and Reusser out on the road now, so the serious contenders look to be on form.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Well, Lieke Nooijen just beat it, comical reaction from Anna Henderson as she realises her time in the hot seat is over.

Well just imagine how Marty must have felt in that moment

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Trinca Colonel gets off to a fine start. Reusser is going mighty fast, if the GPS was accurate.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Lmfao Dani has just mentioned how a couple of years ago Kopecky was "working in the service of Demi Vollering" and is now finally getting the chance to race for herself.

I mean, that's not how it went down, but you do you.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well just imagine how Marty must have felt in that moment

Anna Henderson, the Briton Anna Henderson the Lidl-Trek rider will be disappointed, will Anna Henderson, that Anna Henderson's ride today won't have put Anna Henderson in the maglia rosa...

 

[awavey]

that Swiss national jersey confused me for a minute there

 

[awavey]

as is the Euro (belgian champion) jersey