Date: Saturday May 10, 2025 - Friday May 30, 2025
Start: Durazzo, Albania
Finish: Rome, Italy
Total distance: 3,413km
Stages: 21
Riders: 176
Teams: 22
Defending champion: Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)

GIRO D'ITALIA OVERVIEW

The Giro d’Italia, or just the Giro, is a gruelling multi-stage endurance race and is one of the three Grand Tours, along with the Tour de France and Vuelta a España. Staged over three weeks with 21 individual stage races and two rest days, the Giro features the world’s best cyclists battling it out to win the prestigious pink winner’s jersey.

Last year, the Giro remained on home soil for its Grande Partenza, with Venaria Reale in Turin hosting the opening 136km road stage. In 2023, the opening of the Giro was also held in Italy, but before that, the race featured a foreign start in Budapest, Hungary, and finished in the Italian city of Verona. This year, it is yet to be announced whether the Giro will move away from Italy and head overshores. 

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won the 2024 edition with a margin of 9:56 over the second-placed rider, Daniel Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). The Slovenian won an astounding seven stages in the first Grand Tour of the season and wore the prestigious pink jersey from stage two until the final stage in Rome. It is yet to be announced whether Pogačar will be back in Italy to defend his title in 2025.

GIRO D'ITALIA ROUTE 2025 

Map provided by RCS Sports & Events

The 2024 edition of the race was an all-Italian affair, with the Grande Partenza starting on home soil in Turin. However, for the first time in the race’s history, the Balkan country of Albania will host the Grande Partenza, opening the race with three testing stages which showcase the capital city of Tirana and the coastal cities of Durazzo and Valona.

The first of three rest days will see the riders travel from Albania to Alberobello in southern Italy, where three stages labelled sprints will follow before the first mountain stage in Tagliacozzo. Closing the first week will be a stage not to be missed, with the Giro d’Italia traversing the white roads of Italy’s fabled Classic, Strade Bianche, with a nervy gravel test for the riders, in particular those with eyes on the maglia rosa. Week two opens with a lengthy individual time trial from Lucca to Pisa and then continues to head north through the Apennines, encountering the San Pellegrino in Alpe climb, a sprint finish in Viadana and a dip into Slovenia. The second week closes with a difficult mountain stage featuring nearly 4,000 metres of climbing, setting the tone for the final week. 

Week three is where the race will really be decided. It opens with a mountain test in the region of Trentino with five gruelling categorised climbs in a single stage before a hilly stage that concludes in Bormio and a sprint stage to Cesano Maderno. It’s then in stages 19 and 20 that the race will be decided with two back-to-back difficult days featuring double-digit gradients and even an 8km stretch of gravel to the summit of the Colle delle Finestre – the 2025 Cima Coppi. The three-week race will close with a ceremonial stage in Rome, crowning its 108th Maglia Rosa in front of a roaring crowd. 

See the route stage-by-stage

Stage one: Durazzo to Tirana - 164km
Stage two: Tirana to Tirana - 13.7km
Stage three: Valona to valona - 160km
Rest day
Stage four: Alberobello to Lecce - 187km
Stage five: Ceglie Messapica to Matero - 144km
Stage six: Power to Naples - 210km
Stage seven: Castel di Sangro to Tagliacozzo - 168km
Stage eight: Giulianova to Castelraimondo - 197km
Stage nine: Gubbio to Siena - 197km
Rest day
Stage 10: Lucca to Pisa - 28.6km
Stage 11: Viareggio to Castelnovo Ne' Monti - 185km
Stage 12: Modena to Viadana - 172km
Stage 13: Rovigo to Vicenza - 180km
Stage 14: Treviso to Nova Gorica/Gorizia - 186km
Stage 15: Fiume Veneto to Asiago - 214km
Rest day
Stage 16: Piazzolo sul Brenta to San Valentino - 199km
Stage 17: San Michele All'Adige to Bormio - 154km
Stage 18: Morbegno to Cesano Maderno - 144km
Stage 19: Biella to Champoluc - 166km
stage 20: Verrès to Sestrière - 203km
Stage 21: Rome to Rome - 141km 

GIRO D’ITALIA TEAMS 2025

While the 2025 team list has not yet been announced, it is expected that 22 teams will compete in the Giro d'Italia, with 18 of those being WorldTour teams who automatically receive a place on the start line and the four remaining places will be for second-division pro teams who are top-ranking or chosen as a wildcard by the organisers.

GIRO D’ITALIA HISTORY

The Giro d’Italia will be in its 108th edition in 2024, having started in 1909. Founded by a local, pink coloured newspaper called La Gazzetta dello Sport, today it’s run by RCS Sport, whose parent company RCS Mediagroup also owns the newspaper. Since its inception, the race has become known for being one of the toughest races in the world, and its savage, varied, and beautiful routes have distinguished its prestige even amongst the other Grand Tours.

Such is the Giro’s accolade, overall wins and stage wins are often career defining moments for riders. Throughout the years the Giro has been running, only 22 riders have won the race more than once, and not many can pull off the back-back Giro wins. For many years no one has, with Spaniard Miguel Indurain the last to pull-off the feat in 1992 and 1993. Three riders – Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi, and Eddy Merckx – have won the race a record five times.

Mario Cipollini has won the most stages in the Giro with a grand total of 42 wins. 

No one has come close to challenging Cipollini’s record, with Eddy Merckx holding second place with 24 stage wins, Francesco Moser with 23, and Alessandro Petacchi and Roger De Vlaeminck both with 22. Throughout the history of the Giro, Merckx holds the title for the rider to have worn the pink jersey the most, donning it on 77 occasions.

Most Giro d’Italia wins:

Five wins - Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi, and Eddy Merckx 

Three wins - Gino Bartali, Bernard Hinault, Fiorenzo Magni, Felice Gimondi, and Giovanni Brunero

Recent Giro d’Italia winners:

2024 - Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates 
2023 - Primož Roglič, Jumbo-Visma
2022 - Jai Hindley, Bora-Hansgrohe 
2021 - Egan Bernal, Ineos Grenadiers 
2020 - Tao Geoghegan Hart, Ineos Grenadiers 
2019 - Richard Carapaz, Movistar Team 
2018 - Chris Froome, Team Sky 
2017 - Tom Dumoulin, Team Sunweb 
2016 - Vincenzo Nibali, Astana 
2015 - Alberto Contador, Tinkoff-Saxo 
2014 - Nairo Quintana, Movistar Team