There are races that reveal themselves at a glance. This one doesn't. The Giro della Campania 2026 measures just over 203 kilometers, starting from the Royal Palace of Caserta and finishing at Piazza del Plebiscito. But anyone who merely glances at the altimetry risks misreading it. It's not a race with "a final climb." It's a race built on accumulation, one of those where the directeur sportif must know how to distinguish between visible fatigue and the exhaustion that remains hidden in the legs.

The first key is Montefusco, around km 57. No one will win the Giro there. But someone might start losing it... The climb comes early enough not to produce a battle of the captains, but late enough to impact the men destined to work. If the pace is high, the heavier sprinters will start to suffer and several teams could find themselves with fewer domestiques precisely when the race needs to be controlled.

From Avellino until the entrance to the Amalfi Coast, the teams' main task will be just one: measuring the breakaway's advantage. At Vietri, you won't just need to ask how many minutes the leaders have, but who is up front. In a 1.1-classified race, a quality breakaway can quickly become a problem if there's no united bloc behind willing to control the race for one hundred and fifty kilometers.

Then everything changes. Vietri, Cetara, Maiori, Minori, Atrani, Amalfi, Furore. The altimetry barely tells the story, but this is probably the most insidious section of the Giro. Coastal road, curves, continuous attacks, urban crossings, positioning is crucial. Whoever is riding fiftieth will burn far more energy than whoever is riding fifteenth. Braking, attacking, closing five meters, doing it thirty times over: those are watts that don't exist on the altimetry, but they'll present their bill at Agerola.

And we arrive at the point everyone is watching. Agerola, km 152.7. Here the race can break apart, but be careful: it's not a climb for the pure climber. It's long, steady, more about sustained power than explosive acceleration. If it's ridden at a moderate pace, fifty riders will make it over. If a team takes it at the front after already putting pressure on the Coast, we might see only fifteen crest it.

The tactical gem is something else: don't attack immediately. The most interesting point comes from Furore onwards. There, natural selection will have already eliminated many domestiques, the pace will be high, and the risk of being exposed for too many kilometers will diminish. Whoever wants to win the Giro should start thinking about the race in that section, not necessarily on the steepest ramp. But Agerola is not the finish line. And that's precisely what makes this course beautiful.

From the summit, over fifty kilometers remain. First the descent towards Pimonte, Gragnano, and Castellammare; then more than thirty kilometers substantially favoring the chase, through Pompei, Torre Annunziata, Torre del Greco, Ercolano, Portici, and San Giorgio a Cremano.
This is where the directeur sportif must do the math. A lone rider with twenty seconds at Castellammare is almost doomed. A lone rider with a minute can start to believe. Four riders with forty seconds become a huge problem. Twenty riders with two organized teams can instead turn Piazza del Plebiscito into a tight sprint.

For this reason, the real control point of the Giro, in my view, is not Agerola. It's Castellammare di Stabia. There we'll know how many are ahead, how many behind, which teams still have men, and above all who is willing to work. That's where the race will finally reveal its true face.
The scenario I consider most credible is a sprint from a select group, let's say between fifteen and thirty riders. Right after comes the arrival of a small breakaway. Less likely, but fascinating, is a solo victory. Much harder to imagine a compact group sprint.

The ideal winner? Neither a pure climber nor a traditional sprinter. You'll need a classics rider: capable of staying up front on the Coast, holding twenty minutes at high intensity on Agerola, descending well, and still having speed left after two hundred kilometers.

The Giro della Campania 2026 therefore has a rare quality: it doesn't suggest just one way to win it. You can try attacking. You can wait. You can build the race on the climb or destroy it on the descent. You can chase all the way to Naples. But one thing is certain: whoever arrives at Piazza del Plebiscito thinking they've only ridden "a final climb" will have understood the course too late.

Giovanni Di Trapani is a senior researcher at the CNR currently on secondment to the Office of the Prime Minister: he coordinates the support structure for the Bagnoli Coroglio Commissioner.