And Naples, city of children of the sun, this time invents something dramatically different from Via Caracciolo for next May's Giro. Brilliant and ingenious, also thanks to its fascinating layout for competitive cycling, Naples removes the canonical sprint finish on Via Caracciolo for Thursday the 14th—splendid and shining toward Posillipo and the gulf and melody at the helm. But it courageously elects the cobblestones of Piazza Plebiscito as the unquestionable arbiter of its stage finish. The ongoing cosmetic work on Via Caracciolo, and the concerns arising from a roadway that doesn't seem ideal for a bunch sprint—safeguarding the cyclists' rights above all—have convinced the imminent Giro d'Italia and the Metropolitan City's stakeholders to make a bold choice of route.

The caravan of the Paestum-Naples stage, on a course that will be defined further ahead, given doubts about intermediate routes, will thus arrive from the Neapolitan hinterland via Via Marina and then skirt the Port and Castel dell'Ovo and the nautical clubs and from Via Acton, on a slight slope, will veer sharply to the right in a tight and harsh curve, to tackle the final straight on cobblestones—setts, the urban version of the stones of 'Roubaix'—on Via Cesario Console. Until the finish line banner that will be placed at Piazza del Plebiscito, beneath Palazzo Salerno.

And so after Via Caracciolo, indispensable since Mario Cipollini's sunny 1996, and for many incandescent editions until Kaden Groves' gloomy 2025, Piazza del Plebiscito will once again become the exclamation point of the Giro in Naples, after its remote appearance in 1979, the Caserta-Naples time trial, won by Francesco Moser. We recall the race headquarters of that time, at the Royal Palace. Humble cycling, with Moser in the pink jersey and Knudsen, young Saronni and Johansson, cut no poor figure at all. And the allure of a Sun King once again in blue, in a foreign cycling landscape overflowing today without any rancor—and without enemies, as cycling teaches us—here in Naples will intrigue everyone once again. As it does at every May Giro.

from Il Mattino