The 2025 Vuelta a España's increasingly likely first-ever start in Italy next August looks set to begin in trademark dramatic fashion, with an opening bunch sprint stage followed by an uphill finish on stage 3.
This summer, Vuelta director Javier Guillén already confirmed that Piedmont, in northwest Italy, is a leading candidate to host the start of the race. If it does go ahead, the Vuelta will have started abroad on three successive occasions, following Lisbon for the 2024 race and Monaco as the already confirmed start site for 2026.
According to local Turin newspaper TorinoCronaca, an opening stage from Venaria Reale - the northwesterly suburb of regional capital Turin where the Giro d'Italia began in 2024 and 2021 - will end in Novara, with the flat terrain in that area all but certainly ensuring a bunch sprint.
The Vuelta would be rolling back the years if the terrain for the 2024 opening stage route is confirmed. It has not had a first day with a flat mass start since 2007, in Vigo, with the stage 1 victory and first lead that summer going to Italian fast man Daniele Bennati.
Stage 1's run past the ricefields and across the flatlands of eastern Piedmont will be followed up by a rugged day's racing through the Langhe in the south of the region on stage 2, starting in Cherasco and finishing in the nearby town of Alba. Then, after a start in San Maurizio Canavese, stage 3 will end in the town of Ceres in the Alpine foothills.
Stage 4 is set to start in the westerly Piedmont locality of Bussoleno, and would both ensure that all areas of the region have been visited and be ideally placed for a return to Spain.
Albeit in highly unfamiliar terrain in Italy, early and multiple tough summit finishes in the Vuelta are anything but unusual. In both 2021 and 2023, the first summit finish came on stage 3, and in 2020, after the pandemic-struck start was shifted to the Basque Country, it came on stage 1.
Piedmont is investing heavily to attract major sporting events, especially in cycling. Apart from hosting the Grande Partenza of the 2021 and 2024 Giros and a stage finish and stage start of the 2024 Tour de France, the 2024 men’s and women’s Tour de l’Avenir ended atop the dirt roads of Colle delle Finestre in the region.
Further boosting the links to cycling, a Giro d'Italia 2025 stage finish is also expected at Sestriere, the regional ski station which has played host both to innumerable bike races and teams doing altitude training. Finally, the Tour de l'Avenir is expected to return to Piedmont in 2027.
According to the recently published UCI road calendar, the Vuelta is due to start next year on Saturday, August 23, nearly a week later than its Lisbon start date in 2024. With the €7 million budget for the Vuelta start now published in the Piedmont region's local expenditure predictions, according to TorinoCronaca, an announcement formally confirming the Vuelta's start in Piedmont is reportedly likely to be made as soon as November 17.
While Italy has never been visited by La Vuelta since it began in 1935, geographically the Piedmont start would not be the furthest away from Spain that the Vuelta has ever begun. Turin is around 800 kilometres away from Spain as the crow flies, but the Vuelta's start in the Assen motor circuit in the northern Netherlands in 2009 was nearly twice that distance.
