“Everything is more balanced in this year’s Giro U23, even the mountain stages”
Giro d´Italia U23
Del 3 al 12 de junio
The Giro d’Italia U23, reborn in 2017 with new organisational energy, has established itself in just a few years as the great stage race of the category, with very complicated and sometimes extremely tough routes. This Wednesday, the Italian race presented its 2021 route, which will be contested between 3 and 12 June. A more humanised route that offers more options for different rider profiles, says director Rafa Díaz Justo.
“From my point of view, it’s a different route to that of recent years. In general terms, the first half of the race is more suitable for riders, with a time trial for super-specialists, and the second half has more mountains, with some very entertaining finishes. Everything is more balanced, even the mountain stages. It is true that it has a finish like the one at Lago de Campo Moro, which is thirty kilometres of ascent, but there is not an abundance of stages with chained mountain passes like they did years ago, when they used to give you the Mortirolo on two sides one day even if the kilometreage was less”, says the Spaniard from Toledo.
“I want to see the Sestola finish of the fifth stage, which will be an important day. The day of Lago de Campo Moro will be very important. The eighth stage, the one that arrives in Andalo, is a more complicated day because at the start there is the Passo por el Tonale, a pass that I know well. It’s not too hard and the road is wide and has a good surface, but it will depend on how you start. It’s another thirty kilometres of climbing. The ninth stage is the one with the longest chain of climbs, although it doesn’t have the same level as other stages and doesn’t have the same gradient as in previous years”.
“It’s a route that gives us a lot to play with when it comes to putting together the team”, concludes Díaz Justo. “It is a balanced route, more balanced, which will allow us to have a varied team, more all-terrain, not so focused on climbing. We have to analyse the route well to finish defining what team we’ll go with. For the time trial and for all this balance I would like to have Joan Martí Bennassar, but we still have to evaluate everything”.
