
And so here we are, enthusiastic, even if the thermal excursion of these early June afternoons somewhat undermines its summer vocation. But we are here, illuminated last night at the Hotel Plaza in Caserta with the latest route updates, to welcome this unprecedented Campania Under-23 Tour - Zinzi Cup 2025, a competition spread over three days, which in fact permeates a beautiful and passionate geography of cycling Campania.
A firm point in Caserta über alles royal, Bourbon/Savoyard, if not even in the beloved Marcianise of the 'Vincenzo Capone' Velodrome, this Campania Under-23 Tour is the original, tenacious creation - cycling suits women - of Silvia Gazzola, the Friulian cycling entrepreneur who found further imagination here in Caserta in previous seasons, parallel to love, of inventing cycling. And today here, on the Auruncan shores, with Baia Domizia - Baia Domizia, in the municipality of Cellole, she will kick off the inaugural stage - a 4-kilometer time trial.
From Cristian Sanfilippo to Giovanni Zordan, the first and last of the scheduled departures at 1 PM, we will see over 130 athletes competing, representing about twenty absolutely prominent under-23 teams in the national landscape. Thus begins, through the evocative route choice by ASD Green Team of Silvia Gazzola, with the collaboration of vice-president Stefania Libietti and the concrete support of authoritative cycling protagonists like Francesco Moser, Gianni Bugno, and Mara Mosole, by the seaside, to stimulate cycling's memory and future.
Of course, tomorrow we will experience the Avellino - Maiori, 114 kilometers, Campanian hinterland, the Chiunzi pass to mark Coppi in our minds and the Coastline to sublimate a finisseur attack facing the sea, a second day crucial for the classification. And finally on Saturday, with the 130 kilometers from Caserta - Marcianise, zero km at Curti, and arrival at the mentioned 'Vincenzo Capone' Velodrome, which will feature a tough circuit to be repeated four times, will trace the final hierarchy of the event.
A next-gen Campania Tour, a returning logo, Long Live Silvia, with that Gazzola surname - excuse me - that sounds like 1960s cycling, Gaul and Fornara, in 2025, almost a quarter-century after the sprint in the last professional 'Campania', first Dimitri Konychev, in a sprint over Conte and Ongarato, in front of the Caserta Royal Palace avenue. (And only sixth, we're not mistaken, was our Figueras whom everyone expected to be first...).
And however the triptych goes, a Caserta attention to the enfant du pays Ivan Toselli, from Maddaloni, we too underline in red - looking to the future, indeed in pink... - that imminent time trial we are writing about in Baia Domizia.
Don't ask us why, but we intuit that Silvia Gazzola with this incipit gives a stunning and conjugated light to the greater cycling that will come to this enchanted coastline, too often underestimated. Baia Domizia under-23 in 2025. And it seems like yesterday Guido Bontempi's sprint at the 1986 Giro, with Moser and Saronni shaking hands again.. And it seems like yesterday, but how it was raining, the finish line in front of the 'Mille Luci' bar by Zeno of the Sorrento - Baia Domizia in the Tirreno - Adriatico, first Zabel, in 1998... How it was raining, Svorada and De Jongh placed...
Don't ask us why, arrive in Maiori on Friday and in Marcianise on Saturday in technically fateful days, but the start today from Baia Domizia, perpetual local distinction between Cellole and Sessa Aurunca, seems to us an ultra-green trace of future for cycling to be promoted facing the sea. Between Viale dell'Erica and Viale degli Oleandri, too bad the Hotel della Baia is no longer there, it will be more exciting to sprint in front of 'La Vela', with the Gulf of Gaeta embracing you. Finish line already won in heart.
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