Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 1

May 9, 2025 The 108th Giro d'Italia gets underway from just across the Adriatic Sea in Durrës, Albania. Durrës is situated on the flat coastal plain which will offer a breakaway a chance to form before they cut inland and up the Gracen climb, reaching the top 80KM into the 160KM stage. A long descent takes them towards Sauk and the Redbull Golden Kilometer with 6, 4, and 2 bonus seconds on offer for the first three riders across the line. The riders enter the finishing city of Tirana but still have to complete two laps, each of which contains the Surrel, a 7KM climb at 4%. An 8KM descent brings them back into town with around 3KM flat to the finish and the first Maglia Rosa as the prize for the winner. Anticipation was bubbling at the sign-on as they set out for the neutral start South out of Durrës. Five riders got away about 5KM into the stage and the peloton spread wide across the road as they passed the seaside resort of Golem. The five riders were Alessandro Verre of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Sylvain Moniquet of Cofidis, Taco van der Hoorn of Intermarché-Wanty, Alessandro Tonelli of Polti-VisitMalta, and Manuele Tarozzi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike started riding with Jacopo Mosca and Steven Kruijswijk when the gap got to 1 minute 50 seconds. Jimmy Janssens of Alpecin-Deceuninck pitched in and with 102KM to go through the Intermediate Sprint in Papër, the gap was down to 1 minute 30 seconds. The gap was the same 9KM later through the second Intermediate Sprint in Elbasan with the climb to Gracen approaching. Juan Ayuso of UAE-XRG, one of the pre-race favorites in GC, took a fall with two Picnic-PostNL riders on a roundabout at the foot of Gracen but he was quickly up without too much trouble. The views on the climb were stunning as the helicopter panned across the summit of Gracen. Tonelli was the first to attack for the KOM but it was a long way out at 2.5KM from the top. All but van der Hoorn followed and it got really tactical. It looked like Verre had the jump on the group with 100M to the summit but Moniquet came over the top first to take maximum points. Van der Hoorn was caught at the top, 1 minute 20 seconds after the break summited Gracen. By the bottom of the descent with 62KM to go, the break had just 45 seconds. They had enough of an advantage to stay in front for the Rebull Golden Kilometer at 48KM to go in Sauk. Tonelli jumped early with 300M to go but it was a bit too far once again and Tarozzi was able to come around and take the bonus seconds as well as the points. The race got serious in the peloton through Tirana with 42KM to go with just 1500M to the start of the Surrel. Daan Hoole of Lidl-Trek led throughout the climb and they were successful in shedding a few of the top sprint contenders including Paul Magnier of Soudal Quickstep, Olav Kooij of Visma-Lease a Bike, Milan Fretin of Cofidis, and Sam Bennett of Decathlon AG2R. The descent was reasonably technical but everyone got down safe with Visma-Lease a Bike leading the way. Lidl-Trek did the damage once more when they came around to Surrel again, this time with Carlos Verona. They dropped Kaden Goves, Max Kanter, and many other support riders. Giulio Ciccone took over for Lidl-Trek and really strung out the bunch. He led over the climb with around 45 riders still intact but missing many of the big name sprinters as well as GC riders including Derek Gee of Israel-Premier Tech and Thymen Arensman of Ineos. Near the bottom of the descent, a left turn caught a few riders out including Jay Vine of UAE-XRG, Mikel Landa of Soudal Quickstep, and Geoffrey Bouchard of Decathlon AG2R who all crashed quite hard. Landa and Bouchard each had to leave the race due to their injuries. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe took over at 3KM to go and pushed a high pace. Mathias Vacek took over for Lidl-Trek led through the final corner at 550M with his teammate Mads Pedersen on his wheel. Vacek kept the pace as high as he could manage until just outside 200M when Pedersen started his sprint. Pedersen kept tight to the barriers on his right side. Wout van Aert of Visma Lease a Bike came out of the slipstream and looked like he was making a run with 75M to go but Pedersen had enough in the tank to carry on to the line for the victory and Maglia Rosa after a day of top-notch team work. Van Aert finished second with Orluis Aular of Movistar in third. Pedersen leads the GC but, of the main contenders, Gee lost 57 seconds and Arensman lost 1 minute 35 seconds, a gap that may be unrecoverable for the Dutchman.