The Giro d’Italia is charting a new course. After starting from Bulgaria for the first time in its 109-year history—marking the 15th occasion the Corsa Rosa has begun outside its borders—the Italian grand tour is heading home. The balance is positive, despite the unfortunate abandonments of some favorites (Yates, Buitrago, Vine…) and some safety concerns (the fence legs that caused a mass crash in the sprint of the first stage). Full coffers (RCS Sport is estimated to have collected around 7 million euros from the Bulgarian government) and good sporting spectacle. Little more could be asked…
However, within this growing trend of organizing grand tour starts from foreign countries, now comes the worst part: logistics. The transfer back to the home country sometimes forces a rest day after the first three stages, allowing all teams, organizers, and press to move to the next destination. This has happened twice in the last five years for the Giro: the 2022 edition in Hungary and the 2025 edition in Albania.
And the so-called ‘rest day’ is far from restful. The cyclists, as the stars of the sport, have the privilege of flying to Italy on direct flights, but not so for a portion of the support staff from each of the 23 teams in this Corsa Rosa. According to AS, some team staff members traveled by car from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to Thessaloniki (Greece) late Sunday night (nearly 300 km), continued their journey by ferry to Italy, disembarking in Brindisi (about 9 hours), and from there completed the trip to the vicinity of Catanzaro, the start of Stage 4, again by car (370 km). In total, counting travel hours from Bulgaria, it comes to about 17 hours! An odyssey worthy of Ulysses…
