The Giro d'Italia is always, not just sometimes, in Campania. Once again, following an unexpected trajectory, five consecutive finishes in Naples, 2022 - 2026, as only happened in the days of the Giro's pioneers or in that golden decade straddling 1950, the Giro once again dresses Campania and its capital Naples certainly, but we delude ourselves it does so—in good taste—on behalf of an entire region, its provinces, its turns of stirring history in unison, for how unanimously cycling sentiment represents itself.

The Giro d'Italia, its zero cost for spectators on our roads, wanderers of heartbeat who don't have excess money for football stands or the unpopular bleachers of tennis, the Giro d'Italia is Campania, it is its geography, its orography, its planimetry, its corollary of names and surnames that still dictates tonight—full moon, the Giro approaches—to the last romantic of narrators the surviving reason for being of sport.

The Giro d'Italia, 122 finishes, is haphazardly a Wagnerian cavalcade that has never lost Puccini's melodrama, the lyric that has recited in song and counter-song in a hundred names that arrive serenely first to sentiment, without striking a blow. And on, the Michelangelesque Mario Cipollini on Via Caracciolo in '96. And go, Thomas de Gendt, a nomadic Belgian to whom after Ventoux and Stelvio only the honor of Naples in 2022 could be missing…And on, with Matthew Goss, an unprecedented Australian, in Cava dei Tirreni in 2010, we more in love today. If not with Marcel Wust, a German who skewered sprinters all over Italy, in Mondragone in 1997. And on and on, with Lago Laceno and De Vlaeminck in '76 and Zülle in '98 and a Paret-Peintre in 2023…

And on, because we all understand better here how much cycling has permeated Campania, and when when when if not when the humble Sicilian Antonino Catalano won the time trial on Ischia in 1959, beating champions like Anquetil and Van Looy, if not when the great Fausto Coppi in 1947 won at the 'Vomero', in Naples, and dedicated the victory to his brother Serse who fell the day before…And the Giro is Campania far and wide, from Cristian Moreni in Maddaloni in 2000, it had rained hard but in Maddaloni the sun came out, to Manzoni who won in Cava still in '97, the day of Pantani's fall for a black cat, descending from Chiunzi, and his retirement. That day Manzoni arrived first, but Leopardi won'….

And it's the entire Giro, from Basso to Moser, do you remember the dates?, from Maertens to Monte di Procida in '77, to Saronni a very young man of only 21 years in Benevento first and then the next day stunning in Ravello, in 1978….

And who has ever seen them all finally, from beginning to end, the Giros d'Italia of Campania, from 1909, first Rossignoli, to 2025, first Groves. And how will we experience the Paestum - Naples that looms, who knows, and with what thrill, who knows still. And don't ask us who these people were, from Rossignoli to Groves, they won on our roads—here where Merckx in '68 conquered his first Giro—for them certainly. But let us imagine for the love of a day that revives in Campania from May to May, of Marian month, of solo sprints, of pink to pink, whether you gathered the roses or not, pity, tomorrow they will wilt, inside and outside of you.

from regione.campania.it