PREVIEW | Giro d'Italia 2025 stage 15 - Will Isaac del Toro crack or attack on first high mountain stage?

The Corsa Rosa is the first Grand Tour of the season and this year it will include a start in a nation that will for the first time in it's history host a Grand Tour, Albania; and also several mountain stages in it's second half whilst the first half will feature some tricky stages including one that goes through a lot of the Strade Bianche course. We preview stage 15.

Giro fans will remember this finale, which hosted the finale of the final mountain day of the 2017 Giro d'Italia. A successful combo on that day, and the race directors are hoping to see similar action on the final day of the second week, featuring the fearful Monte Grappa and the climb to Dori en route to a rolling finale in Asiago.

A whole 219 kilometers on the menu means that endurance will once again become a feature, something the Tour de France organizers did not really think about. The Giro provides a lot of this challenge, which can make mountain days more interesting and with more unexpected twists. Early in the day the riders face the famous Muro di Ca' del Poggio which is extremely steep, but will be early in the day and won't serve as a platform to launch attacks.

Later on however, the climbs become very long. Not through it's most difficult side, but the riders will take on Monte Grappa, 25 kilometers long at 5.7%, a climb that will take around an hour and honestly it features gradients that are hard enough to launch serious attacks. It's the final day of the second week, will someone try? Possibly, but unlikely, as the climb still ends with 91 kilometers to go.

The descent will be long, steep and technical, and then there will be some rolling roads until the final climb to Dori. 16.6 kilometers at 5.3% makes a different challenge than some others, it's a big-ring climb where the gradients never go above 10%... It's not the typical ascent for a brutal mountain day, but in these circumstances it definitely can be enough to make the difference.

But it is the potential for tactical racing that makes this finale even more interesting. After so much climbing (this ends with 28Km to go), there is a descent and then a steep uphill ramp of 8% during 1.5 kilometers that end with 20 kilometers to go. But there never really is any big descent...

The entire finale is rolling, in a plateau road that leads to the town of Asiago and where attacks can come at all times. Away from the climbs, the GC riders will go head-to-head on terrain where they are not specialists in, and where a lot of interesting things can happen.

Slight chances of rain. If it does fall, something which wasn't too likely today either, it will make the descents more technical and tense, and overall lead to a more difficult day.

UAE - The truth is Isaac del Toro is here to stay, for now at least. Sure, fatigue may come into play in the final week and there is no certainty that Isaac del Toro will hold his current form all the way to Rome, but for now he likely will and on this stage don't put him on a list of riders losing time. If anything, he should remain with the big guns on the climbs and then potentially win time - either by attacking or sprinting - at the end of the day, because it really is a day that suits him quite well. I think UAE should use him to attack the race whilst Juan Ayuso marks out the GC rivals and mainly Primoz Roglic, as has been so far.

Alternatively, if the opportunity does arise, UAE could try to attack with Ayuso whilst Del Toro covers the rest. Harder to pull it off, but if they can do it it would benefit the team a lot. With Adam Yates and Brandon McNulty losing serious time today they slowly stop being cards to play for the GC to put serious pressure, so it's safe to say UAE will abandon the plans of using them for any serious tactical attack. Still, they have the team to control everything and race conservatively if they want to do so, and in these gradients they won't get attacked by Roglic likely.

Primoz Roglic - Unless something weird happens with UAE, yeah it is rather unlikely that Roglic will try something here. Giulio Pellizzari is doing an absolutely perfect Giro in support of his leader so he won't be alone, but the truth is the rest of the BORA team is lost in battle any time there is action uphill. So BORA can only hope that UAE continue to race conservatively and don't try to raid the race with their depth, and then have Roglic find alliances with some of his rivals in the finale. With further time being shed, he might try to test Del Toro if Roglic really has a good day, but it won't be easy to make a difference here either and likely it's in the last week that we may see this happen.

GC Fight - Simon Yates lays second now, a brilliant and unexpected place he didn't expect to be, but climber Yates hasn't looked the best yet so he will want to keep things as they are and hope for a strong third week; Richard Carapaz is a wildcard, and in his current position the man who excites me the most... EF doesn't have team to attack, but he is not afraid to take risks and do it himself, and may trigger a big battle on every single mountain stage now. Derek Gee climbs to 6th after a poor start to the race and will want to keep things this way; whilst Bahrain will likely be more conservative after Antonio Tiberi crashed today and INEOS may try to raid the race again as they have no interest in finishing 9th and 10th - and to be fair, this is a stage where you can realistically raid the race, and not just rely on W/Kg.

Breakaway - Realistically, the start to the stage is flat and it will be hard for strong climbers to get in the front group, but simultaneously I don't see any team that will have reason to control the race, there is no main favourite to win this stage and no guarrantees of GC differences at the end. So it opens things up quite a lot.

At this point, men like Tom Pidcock, Max Poole and Chris Harper aren't full on GC contenders but if they do get in front and gain time, they could try to do something very nice in the final week and so they have very good reasons to give it their all to be in front... Away from those with secondary reasons, there are viable contenders for a stage win in Nicolas Prodhomme, Marco Frigo, Nairo Quintana, Pello Bilbao, Rémy Rochas, Stefano Oldani, Wout Poels, Lorenzo Fortunato, Luke Plapp, Romain Bardet, Mathias Vacek or Mattia Cattaneo.

*** Luke Plapp, Mathias Vacek, Wout Poels
** Isaac del Toro, Pello Bilbao, Nicolas Prodhomme, Romain Bardet, Max Poole
* Juan Ayuso, Primoz Roglic, Richard Carapaz, Marco Frigo, Nairo Quintana, Rémy Rochas, Stefano Oldani, Lorenzo Fortunato, Mattia Cattaneo, Chris Harper, Tom Pidcock

Pick: Luke Plapp

How: Solo victory from the breakaway