PREVIEW | Giro d'Italia 2025 stage 17

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 17.

Much had been rumoured of this stage, but an ascent of the Passo dello Stelvio will not be present. Instead Bormio hosts the finale of an interesting stage which is not as dangerous for the GC as we usually have in the city. The distances are now much shorter, a more explosive and tactical GC day...

We will have climbs of the Passo del Tonale (14.8Km; 6.2%) and the Passo del Mortirolo (but not through it's hardest side, being 12.8Km at 7.6%) that come with 86 and 48 kilometers to go. They are hard, not as hard as the previous days, but hard enough to again fully explode the GC fight. But after the summit there will still be over an hour of racing... So what follows? 

First of all a major trap which is the descent of the Mortirolo, extremely steep and technical which in itself can create serious differences. Riders from the breakaway can then make serious difference depending on what happens in the peloton, and can push forward attacks both up and downhill.

The riders climb 700 meters in altitude throughout the following kilometers. But even if nothing happens until then, the final ascent of the day to Le Motte can still be used for big attacks. It's 3 kilometers long at 8%, at the end of such a stage, uphill run-in, and third week of the race, it can be ground for more big attacks from the victory contenders.

This climb ends with just a little under 10 kilometers to go, half of the run-in to the finish is flat which could still see some action, whilst the other half is slight downhill.

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