Giro 2020 Route stage 7: Matera- Brindisi

Friday 9 October - The 7th stage is one of the reasons why all those stellar sprinters show up at the Giro. The 143 kilometres route from Matera to Brindisi is as flat as can be.

The famous Via Appia has been traveling from Rome to Brindisi for thousands of years. That’s a fact. And it is next to certain that we’ll have another Brindisi-fact in the evening of 9 October 2020. Namely, that the town saw a sprint finish that afternoon. The route between Matera and Brindisi is a fast finisher’s dream with hardly any elevation gain.

The route traverses the foot of the Italian boot from west to east. In 2017, the 7th stage started in Castrovillari to tackle a similar route. That race finished in Alderobello and Caleb Ewan outgunned Sam Bennett and Fernando Gaviria in a photo-finish sprint.

Brindisi hosted the Giro’s Grande Partenza in 1971, when Salvarani won the team time trial and Felice Gimondi – alias The Phoenix – took the first maglia rosa. Gimondi, who died last year at the age of 76, is one of seven riders who won all three Grand Tours.

Two intermediate sprints – at kilometre 66.2 and kilometre 91.5 – come with 3, 2 and 1 seconds each, while time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds are awarded to the first three riders on the line.

Another interesting read: results 7th stage 2020 Giro d’Italia.