Sometimes a race is reborn from a simple question. On May 14th, in Piazza del Plebiscito, the Giro d'Italia had just brought Naples back to the center of cycling. Regional Sports Assessor Fiorella Zabatta asked Umberto Perna what could be done for the Campania cycling movement. The answer from the president of the Regional Cycling Federation was immediate: bring the Giro di Campania back to life.

But with one condition: not just a single edition. "We had to commit for at least four years, for the entire term of office," Perna explains. This is perhaps the most important detail to understand the significance of the return on September 20th. Not a celebratory interlude, but an attempt to restore continuity to a race that had been missing for twenty-five years.

Then the project took shape. The President of the Region Roberto Fico asked that the route touch all five provinces; the administrators of the Amalfi Coast worked to bring the race to those roads; Terenzi Sport Eventi worked on the technical definition. And so Agerola returned to the Giro, not only as a climb, but as a place of memory.

It is here that Perna's story naturally connects with that of Italo Zilioli, who had brought us back to the 1968 Campania on these pages. Zilioli remembered Agerola precisely: Colombo ahead, his attack with Bitossi, the regrouping at the summit and then the road toward Naples. He also remembered the Albricci, the track finishes, a cycling of exhaustion, few gears and countless kilometers. Perna tells today the other half of the story: not what that race was, but what it can become again.

And he doesn't hide the difficulties. "Campania cycling has come out of intensive care," he says. A phrase that says more than many routine statements. The movement shows signs of growth, especially in the youth sector, but still lacks that critical mass capable of generating continuity, clubs, races and perhaps a new champion who recalls the times of Giuliano Figueras or Crescenzo D'Amore.

Perna insists especially on one word: safety. Because growing cycling doesn't just mean organizing a professional race, but creating the conditions for children, young people, coaches and clubs to work every week.

In this perspective, the recovery of the Albricci also fits in. "I define it as a velodrome," he clarifies. Thanks to work with the Military Command, with Gennaro "Rino" Nasti and with the support of the Metropolitan City, the facility is now available to cycling two days a week.
Here too time seems to close a circle: Zilioli remembered the Albricci as a place of arrival; Perna tries to restore it as a place of departure for young people.

On September 20th, however, major cycling will also arrive. Perna anticipates high-level participation and announces the presence of INEOS, explaining that Claudio Terenzi is working to bring many of the teams competing the previous day in the Gran Premio del Lazio to Campania. The final start list will give the measure of the field of starters, but the ambition is evident.

So the most important question remains: what will happen on September 21st? Perna doesn't hesitate: "The Giro is only the final step of a much broader process." He cites youth activities, territorial initiatives, the Vesuvius climb scheduled for October 8th. The meaning is clear: success can't be measured solely by the public along the roads or by the name of the winner at Piazza del Plebiscito. It will also have to be measured in the young people who will get on their bikes after seeing the professionals pass, in the clubs that will be able to grow, in the races that will return to animate the roads of Campania.
The Giro di Campania, in short, cannot afford to be merely a return. It must become a promise kept.

But there remains another question, one that belongs exclusively to the road: what will the 2026 Giro di Campania really be like? To answer, we will need to read the route meter by meter, place the planimetry and altimetry side by side, understand where the group can break apart, how much weight Montefusco and especially Agerola will carry and what could happen in the kilometers that separate the last major climb from Piazza del Plebiscito.

It will be our next appointment with the Giro di Campania.
This time the route will speak.