2013 Giro d’Italia route unveiled - Colnago CSF Inox look to build on suc­cess­ful 2012

The route for the 2013 Giro d’Italia was unveiled yes­ter­day in Milan, to an audi­ence of cycling celebri­ties and journalists.

Starting with a cir­cuit race in Naples, the race will then head to the island of Ischia for a team time trial, which will be the first stage to sep­a­rate the GC con­tenders. Seven moun­tain­ous stages will be bal­anced some­what by the long, 55.5km indi­vid­ual time trial on stage 8, which will likely see some large time gaps. The hard­est part of the race appears to be in the last week, which fea­tures a moun­tain time trial, fol­lowed by arguably the two tough­est stages of the tour. Stage 15 heads over the bor­der into France fin­ish­ing at the sum­mit of the Col du Galibier, whilst stage 19 looks par­tic­u­larly daunt­ing, with the rid­ers hav­ing to tackle the infa­mous Gavia and Stelvio passes, both peak­ing at over 2600m, before a sum­mit fin­ish to Val Martello.

Race orga­niz­ers RCS are obvi­ously hop­ing for a thrilling finale, sim­i­lar to this years event which wasn’t decided until the very last stage. Managing Director of RCS Sport, Michele Acquarone, described the three weeks as “21 beau­ti­ful indi­vid­ual races in one over­all race”.

Colnago CSF Inox will once again be look­ing to gain a wild­card entry into the race, in order to build on a very suc­cess­ful 2012 in which the team took a stage win and 8^th over­all with Domenico Pozzovivo, plus 3^rd in the young rider com­pe­ti­tion with Gianluca Brambilla.

Ernesto Colnago, who him­self was at the pre­sen­ta­tion, is already look­ing for­ward to another beau­ti­ful edi­tion of the race:

“I have seen many Giro d’Italia, and the 2013 race is made for real champions.”

Meanwhile, at the Italian National Track Championships, also being held in Milan, Colnago CSF Inox rider Marco Coledan won two titles in the space of 48 hours. Coledan had already won the indi­vid­ual pur­suit, before going on to win the points race, ahead of De Marchi, and Elia Viviani, who represtented Italy on the track at the Olympic this summer.