Giro 2027 Route stage 1: Trieste - Trieste

Saturday 8 May – No prologue, team time trial or royal sprint stage to open the 2027 Giro d’Italia. Instead, the organisers serve up a hilly 172-kilometre stage in and around Trieste, featuring just over 2,400 metres of climbing. The final uphill section comes 6.8 kilometres from the finish, after which it’s downhill all the way to the line.

Published on 6 November 2027

You can say what you like, but the Giro is certainly not getting off to a coffee ride start. The peloton is immediately thrown into a lumpy route littered with cheeky little rises, gently uphill kilometres and short downhill bursts of speed. Along the way, the riders crisscross back and forth over the Italian-Slovenian border.

The border region has more than enough leg-busting climbs to make for a tough race. It starts just over 30 kilometres in, with an uncategorised ascent of 3.2 kilometres at 4.5%, followed shortly afterwards by a 1-kilometre climb at 7.9%. That sets the tone for the day. Up and down, up and down.

With 67 kilometres remaining, there is a brief respite, as the road stays flat or descends for around 27 kilometres. The Giro then serves up its nastiest climbs of the day within the following 24 kilometres: to Hrvatini (2.3 kilometres at 6.2%), Prebeneg (2.4 kilometres at 9.5%) and Cattinara (3.4 kilometres at 6%, also known as the Sella di Longera). The riders are already within the city limits when they face one more rise: a 1.9-kilometre climb at 4% leading up to Palazzo Ferdinandeo.

The riders race past Palazzo Ferdinandeo with 6.8 kilometres remaining, after which it is downhill all the way to the finish. A finale like this favours riders with a strong Classics pedigree – in particular, those who finished near the front of Liège–Bastogne–Liège just a few weeks earlier.

Things were different in the 2014 and 2009 editions of the Giro, which also featured stage finishes in Trieste. Luka Mezgec (2014) and Alessandro Petacchi (2009) took the wins, telling you all you need to know about the parcours on those occasions: flat roads ruled the day. Further back in time, Alex Zülle (1998) and Sergiy Honchar (2004) also celebrated victories in Trieste, and those names tell their own story as well. On those occasions, the finish came at the end of individual time trials.

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Giro d'Italia 2027 stage 1: profile

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