Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 7

May 16, 2025 Today is the first road stage that GC riders can realistically start putting time into their rivals. There are 3,400M of elevation across the 168KM between Castel di Sangro and Tagliacozzo in the heart of the Apennines. The start is very hard with the 8KM, 6% climb of Roccaraso coming straight out of the blocks. A long downhill takes the riders into Sulmona for the first Intermediate Sprint. 15 kilometers later comes the Monte Urano, a 5KM climb at over 9%. Next is the shallow but long Vado Della Forcella which tops out with 62KM to go before a gradual downhill run all the way to Tagliacozzo for the Redbull Golden Kilometer and the start of the final climb to the finish. The ascent up to Tagliacozzo is 9KM long at 4.5% but the last 2.5KM is over 9% and could be a launch pad for a select group to come to the line. It was a cooler start with low hanging clouds but thankfully dry roads. Halfway up Roccaraso, Paul Double of Jayco AlUla got away with Wout Poels of XDS-Astana, Gianmarco Garofoli of Soudal Quickstep and Filippo Fiorelli of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. Rafal Majka of UAE-XRG came across which killed their chance. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe chased it down and the attacking restarted. XDS-Astana controlled to allow Lorenzo Fortunato to take maximum points at the top of Roccaraso. Jay Vine of UAE-XRG counter attacked. Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, Alessandro Tonelli of Polti-VisitMalta, Christian Scaroni of XDS-Astana, and Garofoli came across but they had just 10 seconds with 152KM to go as Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe were chasing once again. Vine knew he was not going to be let go and sat up, leaving four riders up front. Double bridged back across with Manuele Tarozzi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè and were then joined by Gijs Leemreize of Picnic-PostNL to make a seven man lead group with 146KM to go. Light rain began to fall again as they started the downhill run towards Sulmona through the stunning Parco Nazionale Della Maiella but it was not as treacherous as yesterday. The break went through the sprint at 118KM from the finish with a gap of 1 minute 40 seconds. They started the Monte Urano with just a 2 minute lead as Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe were really working to keep the race on a tight leash. Double made a hard sprint at the top to take the points as the break started the descent with an extra 25 seconds in hand. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe backed off their pace on the lower slopes of the 22KM climb of Vado Della Forcella. Halfway up the climb with 73KM to go, the gap was at 3 minutes 30 seconds. At the top, Double picked up the maximum points again which points him on 36 points and is becoming a real challenger to Fortunato in the Mountains competition. The temperature was down to just 5C (41F) at the summit, 1,400M above sea level but they would not drop down in elevation until after the Intermediate Sprint in Ovendoli at 52KM to go. Lidl-Trek added firepower to the chase with race leader Mads Pedersen and Daan Hoole and the gap tumbled to just 1 minute 20 seconds by the bottom with 34KM to go. GC teams started their positioning battle with 28KM to go near Magliano de' Marsi in preparation for the final climb up to Tagliacozzo. Tarozzi took the Redbull Golden Kilometer sprint in front of Tonelli which was likely the last prize on offer for the break today because the peloton were barring down at just 1 minute behind with 12KM to go. Ineos had numbers and went to the front, then Bahrain Victorious took over but the pace wasn't quick enough to take much off the gap to the break, still sitting at 25 seconds with 6.5KM to go. The speed finally ramped up about 1KM later which put the end to the breakaway with 5KM to climb. The road turned into a wall with 2500M to go and the bunch was immediately trimmed to around 25 riders. UAE-XRG controlled the group and kept it relatively steady until 1300M from the line when Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek attacked. He was brought back and the group looked around at each other to see who would go next. At 800M, Egan Bernal of Ineos made a big attack which strung the remaining 20 riders out in single file but the elastic did not snap. When the speed came down slightly, Juan Ayuso of UAE-XRG countered. Bernal was on the wheel until 300M to go but had to let it go. Ayuso sprinted to the line and took the win to lay the first marker down in the GC. His teammate, Isaac del Toro came across in second, 4 seconds later with Bernal in third on the same time. Primož Roglič of Rebull-Bora Hansgrohe finished in fourth on the same time as Bernal and as a result, he will wear the Maglia Rosa going into the weekend for Stage 8. Ayuso is now in second place, 4 seconds back with del Toro in third at 9 seconds.