Giro d’Italia stage 21 preview

May 27, 2023

Distance: 135km
Start location: Rome
Finish location: Rome
Start time: 15:25 CEST
Finish time (approx): 18:43 CEST

In the first century BC, Roman poet Tibullus described Rome as The Eternal City, coining a phrase that is still used today to describe the city’s seemingly never-ending persistence. Over 2000 years later, he’s yet to be proven wrong.

The final stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia is an ode to the nation’s capital in much the same way as the the Tour de France celebrates Paris with its finale each year, and the circuit the peloton will ride around takes in many of the sites that reflect the many eras of history that have shaped the city. Upon entering the city centre from the south, they’ll pass the Terme di Caracella, Roman baths where residents would meet to socialise as well as bathe, whose grand architecture was the inspiration for many future buildings from antiquity through to modern America. Around the corner they’ll come across the infamous Colosseum, another host of sporting events, albeit of the bloodier, gladiatorial kind.

The Via dei Fori Imperiali thoroughfare leading to Piazza Venezia moves us forward in time towards later architectural feats, to the nineteenth century, gleaming white neoclassical monument Altare della Patria, to Castel Sant’Angelo, the cylindrical, mediaeval papal fortress that was built on the mausoleum of Roman emperor Hadrian. Via the Lungotevere dei Tebaldi boulevard that runs alongside the river Tiber the route heads back south, towards the ruins of Circus Maximus, the arena that hosted chariot racing during Roman times. 

Stage 21 profile sourced on the Giro d’Italia website 

Rome might be known as the City of Seven Hills, but each of them are carefully avoided in a stage that’s designed for the sprinters. Not only is the 13.6km circuit around Rome flat, so too is the 16km out and back road they take at the start of the stage from Rome, along the Via Cristoforo Colombo road to Lido di Castel Fusano in Ostia on the Tyrrhenian coast. The circuit (which will be tackled six times) is a little undulating and there are some tricky urban roads to negotiate with tight bends and some cobbled sections, but none of this should cause the riders too many problems.

This will be only the fifth time in…