Seen and Seen Again: Albert II is chasing the Vuelta with Monte Carlo, aiming to overtake Turin in the first Grand Departures of the national cycling tours. Valtellina and Cadore are busy preparing for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics. And Naples is throwing itself into the 2027 America's Cup sailing event to secure €2 billion in related revenue, including the redevelopment of Bagnoli.
In certain circumstances, numbers sing even more than they sing. And for major events, they often sing extremely compelling symphonies.
On Saturday 25 August, Venaria Reale – copying the Giro of the 150 years of the Unification of Italy (2011) – saw the Vuelta a Espana start from our home for the first time, which after the presentation of the 23 participating teams travelled for three or four days between Turin, Novara, Alba, Limone Piemonte and Susa before crossing over to France (Grenoble area) and reaching the mother country, Spain.
Prince Albert, Regent of the Principality of Monaco, also showed up in Turin, Venaria, and Novara, announcing the start of the 2026 Vuelta a España from Monte Carlo on August 22, just as the Giro d'Italia did in 1966 and the Tour de France in 2009. The Prince's strategy is clear: surpass Piedmont in hosting the Grand Departures of the three national Tours of Italy, France, and Spain, thus ridding Piedmont of the label of being the only area to have been "touched" by them, as was the case with the Tour, which "only" featured a stage finish or start, and not the...great cycling circus. Monte Carlo does better with a full complement of Departures. An absolute first.
Is the Monegasque treble merely a statistical whim? Not at all: sometimes, numbers, besides being impressive, also have an economic soul, swollen with euros and/or dollars. Experts have estimated that the Tour generated €20 million in revenue in Florence for the eve of the race and the start day alone, compared to €125 million for the entire French campaign that year in Italy (Florence, plus Cesenatico, Bologna, Piacenza, Turin, and Pinerolo). The Giro d'Italia accounts for 40% of the Tour's revenue, and the Vuelta a further 25-30%. The 2013 Cycling World Championships in Tuscany generated more than €8 million in just eight days.
Prince Albert II is a man of sport. He reached 67 in good shape, having competed in a myriad of disciplines. He practiced track and field (javelin), football, handball, rowing, judo, tennis, bobsleigh, skiing, horseback riding, modern pentathlon, and sailing. He was the leader of the Italian national team at both the summer and winter Olympics, as well as acting president of several national federations. He retired from competitive cycling at around 45. We met him when he was in the midst of his sporting career: he was also enamored with elite cycling, so much so that he "adopted" professional cycling management companies. It was not uncommon to see him christening the new racing season of some Italian club sheltering in Monaco in front of the residential palace of the Princes Grimaldi.
He is so convinced (rightly) that sport can help young compatriots prevent childhood obesity, which in adulthood leads to type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, which are so costly to the Principality's coffers, that he sets countless good examples. Once, near the Port, we saw Albert II supervising the construction of tracks for a bobsleigh, encouraging anyone who wanted to practice pushing. And how many interviews with Filippo Grimaldi (namesake of the royal family, but not a relative) have we read in the Gazzetta dello Sport? Countless... until the passing of Stefano Casiraghi, his sister Carolina's second husband, who died in a motorboat racing accident in the Principality after also being world champion. Stefano was the father of the Prince's three grandchildren: Andrea, Charlotte, and Pierre. Five years younger than us, we met him by frequenting his villa in Fino Mornasco (Como), where he lived with his siblings Daniele, Marco, and Rosanna. There, we played tennis and enjoyed tarts that were truly unavailable elsewhere, so delicious that we quickly forgot the ups and downs of his academic achievements at the De Amicis Archbishop's College in Cantù.
We're talking about the early 1970s. Stefano was about twelve years old and would have disappeared in his early thirties. So many stories about Seen and Re-Seen...
In short, hosting a major event is a good deal because of the direct and indirect benefits that include – among other things – the legacy of structural works and image campaigns, which regularly prove to be real drivers of tourism.
We say this as we ascend and descend from Valtellina and Cadore, clogged with traffic due to ongoing construction work (though unlikely to be completed in a timely manner) and related to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, now upon us. We say this to ourselves, but not exclusively to ease the disappointment of the hours spent in traffic jams inside our four-wheeled box while workers bustle about outside the windshield. Even inconveniences have horizons that offer optimism.
Italy's sports-related economy isn't just looking at the Grand Tours and the Snow Olympics, twenty years after the controversial experience in Piedmont. Just around the corner, for example, are the Mediterranean Games, in a Taranto desperately seeking times that can only be better than the recent past and present, and—a first—the America's Cup sailing event scheduled for Naples in 2027.
The Neapolitans are thrilled by the start of the 2025-26 Serie A football championship, which for the Azzurri began as the previous one ended—excellently. They have the positive experiences of the Giro d'Italia on Via Caracciolo in mind. And they are looking forward to the most important sailing event in the world with extraordinary expectations.
Anyone who knows how to expertly and thoughtfully put together the numbers of the Cup, in a summary work, argues that the Event should be based on the following numbers:
- 14 thousand new jobs
- 2 millions of visitors
- 370 million in tourism spending (catering, accommodation, transport)
- 165 million in public and private investments
- 70 million for the organization of the Event
- 22 million in costs for the teams
The total impact is calculated between 1,2 and 2 billion with a total positive effect on overall income of 62 million.
And what can we expect from the redevelopment of the Bagnoli area, from the image of Naples spread throughout the world (although in certain geographical areas mainly at night due to the time difference), from the involvement of the entire Campania Region?
Well... Turin, Monte Carlo, Milan, Cortina, Taranto, and Naples feel the same way. And even Rome, after its major renunciation of bidding for a second edition of the Summer Olympics, is working hard in every field—from sports to entertainment, including film and fashion—to regain some of the ground lost over time, which not even the Jubilee could guarantee.
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