The Olympic motto is pretty straightforward: “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. Well, technically, it’s had “Together” added to the end of it, but it doesn’t really change the meaning of the phrase, inaugurated at the first modern event, in 1894. It sounds a bit like an early version of Radiohead’s Fitter Happier, but it was supposed to encapsulate the Olympic ideal.
Often, it feels like the route designers of the men’s Grand Tours are trying to live up to Pierre de Coubertin’s motto, and somehow make their race harder every year. There’s something almost masochistic about how routes are designed, announced and marketed, as if what fans want is for riders to break themselves over three weeks.
News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.
Next year’s Tour de France, for example, might build slowly, but has the brutal final week culminating in two Alpe d’Huez finishes; its over 54,000m of elevation is there as a badge of honour. We don’t know the route of the 2026 Vuelta a España yet, but this year’s race counted 12 stages out of 21 with over 3,000 metres of climbing, and nine summit finishes.
It would not be strange to expect, then, that the 2026 Giro d’Italia would follow this format. The Italian race is often the most predictable of the three Grand Tours, with its back-loaded trip around the Alps and Dolomites setting up a grandstand finish. The 2025 edition had four mountain stages in five days in the final week, all part of 53,250 metres of climbing.
It turns out that this is not the menu that RCS and Giro director Mauro Vegni has for everyone in May. To call the route easy would be laughable, obtuse, but it certainly has been designed to look easier. There is 8% less elevation gain, from 53,250 metres to 49,150, and while there are seven summit finishes, only two of them are ranked as five-out-of-five difficulty by the organisers. Stage 19 in the Dolomites is a sop to those who demand masochism, with 5,000m of elevation in 152km, and six classified climbs including the Passo Giau, but it’s surrounded by relatively kinder days. 2026 will be just the third edition in the last 10 with less than 50,000m of elevation.
This is obviously not how the Giro has been sold, or will be marketed. The elevation has been rounded up and trumpeted, and the soundbites are all about how exciting and emotional the race will be. However, a slightly easier course is no bad thing.
The truth is, the Giro knows that it is secondary to the Tour in terms of stage race objectives, and it has to play into that. To attract the biggest names, those that will likely be in France in July, they have to make a race that doesn’t break riders, that makes it more plausible for a tilt at both. That’s why it’s a route which doesn’t have a traditional final week of just going up mountains, and things are more spaced out. It’s not something the organisers have been quiet about, either, with Mauro Vegni telling Cyclingnews that he hoped Jonas Vingegaard would come.
There is the trio of difficult GC stages in the opening week, and a 40km-long time trial, but there are also potentially eight sprint stages. Sometimes, moderation is needed. This is not a route which Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) would balk at, and neither is it a turn-off for Remco Evenepoel (soon to be Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe).
What RCS and the Giro really needs, is a clash of the big names, not just dominance from a single rider, as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) so ably demonstrated in 2024. With a route acting as a lure, perhaps they’ll get their wish. That said, often the best racing is when a collection of similar-matched riders lock horns, as happened this season with Simon Yates vs Isaac del Toro vs Richard Carapaz. It’s not all about the biggest names.
It is refreshing to see a route which isn’t just about how much torture the riders can be put through – it is up to the riders themselves to create the torture through how they race the roads. There is variety here, from short, sharp mountain days to a stage, which at 246km, is 42km longer than the longest Tour stage in 2026. There’s a mix.
The Giro benefits from not having to attempt to Pogačar-proof its course, as the Tour has done – the Slovenian is unlikely to do both again in 2026 – but it still has to be clever, play the game. I’m looking forward to May already, and a Giro which is dynamic, not one which waits for final week fireworks. Let’s hope RCS get their dream of a start list.
Faster, higher, stronger isn’t always possible, but that doesn’t mean the race will be any less exciting.
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