Stage 1 of the 2025 Giro d'Italia today: route, profile, schedule, and where to watch on TV and online

The 108th edition of the Giro d'Italia is here. For almost a month, Italians will enjoy the cycling festival, which this year will feature a unique feature: the starting gun will be in Durazzo, Albania .

In fact, during the first three stages, competitors will travel through four Albanian municipalities, including the capital, before arriving in Italy. This edition begins today, May 9, and will end on June 1 in Rome.

A race in which reigning champion Tadej Pogacar will not be able to win the pink jersey again after being a notable absence this year, as his team, UAE Team Emirates, has decided to prioritize its schedule for other races and not compete in all three Grand Tours in the same season (Giro, Tour de France, and Vuelta a España). Jonas Vingegaard, the great alternative, will also be absent.

The favorites in this edition are Primoz Roglic, Juan Ayuso, Adam Yates, Giulio Ciccone, Mikel Landa, and Antonio Tiberi. Also to be considered are race winners such as Richard Carapaz (2019) , Egan Bernal (2021) , and Jai Hindley (2022 ), who will all be looking to repeat.

In this edition, competitors will cover 3,413.3 kilometers with an altitude difference of 52,500 meters. Of the 21 stages, two will be time trials, six will be sprints, and the rest will be mountain stages, the latter with moderate to maximum difficulties.

In addition to the four Albanian municipalities, the Giro will pass through 14 Italian regions : Veneto, Aosta Valley, Umbria, Trentino, Tuscany, Puglia, Piedmont, Marche, Lombardy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna, Campania, Basilicata and Abruzzo.

The first stage will depart from Durazzo at around 1:10 p.m. It will have a vertical drop of 1,800 meters and a distance of 160 kilometers . The first obstacle the cyclists will face will be a sprint at kilometer mark 57.9, and they will also have to overcome another sprint ten kilometers later.

But that's not all. This mostly flat route features three mountain passes, the first of which is category two and the rest are category three. Competitors will have to tackle the Gracen climb and then twice up the Surrel climb, with gradients of 13%, before reaching the finish line in the Albanian capital of Tirana.

The first stage of the Giro d'Italia will begin today at 1:10 p.m. (12:10 p.m. in the Canary Islands) and competitors are expected to reach the finish line at 5:25 p.m.

The entire competition can be followed on Eurosport and the Max streaming platform, as well as on Euskal Irrati Telebista . The abc.es website will have all the information: cyclists, winners, anecdotes, routes, and more.