Cities of sport. This time, the Tour of Spain, designed by Venaria Reale in Madrid, takes place beneath the Mole Antonelliana. Echoing the Tour's programs, it brings this Baroque jewel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to the world, with the capital of Piedmont proclaiming itself the cradle of major events. But be careful not to betray the concept of legacy.
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Those born with the DNA of investigative journalism cannot avoid the turmoil of curiosity aroused by the Tour of Spain – which for convenience we will call the Vuelta in comparison to the Giro d'Italia, also known as the Giro, and the Tour of France, abbreviated to the Tour, or rather: Le Tour – which sets sail from Italy in August 2025, much like the Giro in Durazzo and the 2024 Tour in Florence.
Globalism also brings these emotional burdens.
We ideally set sail for Turin, where the Vuelta, which celebrates its 90th anniversary with its 80th edition and is the 300th major world cycling stage race of all time, will start from the Reggia di Venaria Reale, aka noble Piedmont.
In some ways, it's a familiar scene from the 2011 Giro, during the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, but back then, Turin was all pink; instead, in 2025, it's all red, just as it was all yellow in 2024 for the Tour's impromptu foray, which was born for the first time in Italy on the Florence-Cesenatico-Bologna-Turin route.
Venaria Reale, in its entirety, with the Gardens of La Mandria, is unique, so much so that it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This 1600th- and 1700th-century architecture draws heavily from the Baroque period, making it an enchanting village. The Vuelta is enjoying itself as much as it enjoyed in 2011, despite the fact that it was the dawn of an unfortunate edition, with the death of Belgian sprinter Wouter Weylandt shortly thereafter on the descent of the Passo del Bocco. Alberto Contador's subsequent disqualification for doping concerns that arose elsewhere (i.e., not at that year's Giro), led to the posthumous crowning of Michele Scarponi as the overall winner, only to be swept away six years later by a tragic training accident.
That was a thrilling year for cycling, and not only that.
Major cycling events that touch Turin often involve sinister or mysterious elements. It began in 1909, with the "polite deception" when, on the penultimate day of the race, fearing that his crown jewel would be swept away by the unstoppable crowd, then-Patron Armando Cougnet, in concert with a fearful police commissioner, diverted the day's finish to Beinasco. The crowd quickly discovered this and rushed to the new destination, still embracing Luigi Ganna, the bricklayer on his way to victory in the first Giro, who was not yet wearing the leader's jersey in the pink colors of the Gazzetta dello Sport, which had appeared in 1931 in Mantua, much to the chagrin of Benito Mussolini.
Which other cities in the world can boast the privilege of having hosted the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta within their borders, with prestigious events such as Grand Departures and/or stage finishes? Simple answer: none. And how is this privilege harnessed to convey the legacy to cyclists? How are we doing with cycle paths, for example? The website muoveatorino.it is self-explanatory: 290 kilometers. Good. How many cycling schools are there for children? There are enough of them to avoid being punished for disinterest in the vehicle that gives young people a sense of independence and mobility.
The fresh Vuelta trophy might, however, suggest something more and better to Piedmontese administrators than boasting the label of a city in harmony with major sporting events, which have a significant cultural substratum. From the ATP Tennis Finals onwards, magically graced by Jannik Sinner, number one in 1, the City of the Mole knows how to stand out when it wants to. legacy.
Unfortunately, it also does so in a negative way: should we even address the issue of the Snow Olympics facilities going to ruin? And, returning to cycling, how much longer will it take to revive the Milan-Turin race, which is still Italy's oldest classic road race, yet we see it draining resources here and there in Piedmont, less traditional for this discipline? With so much love that Urbano Cairo has for Turin and the sport of those latitudes (especially football), can't he perpetuate the Superga event for cycling as well? The last mentor of the Giro and the Gazzetta certainly can't forget that he was initiated into the love for the Giro by a father so deeply committed to the most democratic discipline in sport...
In 2024, the year of the merciless comparison between a Giro reborn in Venaria Reale (13 years after “our” one of Italian unification) and a Tour that passed under the Mole under the banner of Eritrean sprinter Beniamin Girmay (a true star of the new sporting Africa who went so far as to bring the first Cycling World Championships to Rwanda), having put the numbers of the image returns guaranteed by the two events in question on the scales meant dwarfing the Giro in comparison to the Tour because no cycling event can keep up with the Grande Boucle.
Looking at the younger generations, the 2 billion euros in revenue generated by the Tour are reflected in the truly historic audiences recorded in 2025 among the youngest and potential spenders who follow digital social media: 33,2 million unique visitors, over 102 million visits, of which 67 million are international, 39 million sessions on the official apps, 27,4 million visits to the Race Centre (i.e. the source that provides official information on the competition in progress), 980.000 Club Tour members, 195.000 Fantasy Tour players... 52,8 users of social media in general, one and a half billion views of #TourdeFrance and 1,3 billion views of journalistic content (including videos and news).
And what about the views, even taking into account only the “best posts”, which amount to 36 million on Instagram, 33 million on TikTok, 17,3 million on Facebook and 5,3 million on X (for live broadcasts from the stage departures only)?
Item after item, the growth of this whirlwind of numbers fluctuates between +6,7% and +57%. What Tour could be more universal than this?
With his eyes fixed on the Tour's beacon, fixed in front of his team car, and taking advantage of the expertise of ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), which acquired his Unipublic team inherited from his predecessor Victor Cordero (whom they still lead in the caravan every year like a true saint), Caronte Javier Guillen is moving with astuteness to elevate the Vuelta a little more each time, thus depriving the Giro of its alluring slogan of "the most difficult race in the world, in the most beautiful country in the world".
Guillen capitalizes on his ability to stay in the wake of the Tour without distorting the Vuelta, and on the other, he doesn't forget the Moloch of his homeland, who in 2025 are in the shadow of the Angliru with those 13 kilometers of climbing at an average 9,7% to help the riders digest – so to speak – a good 1266 meters of positive altitude gain, a Golgotha of "transition" towards the penultimate stage featuring the Bola del Mundo (18,5 km at an average 6% over 1110 meters of climbing) before the parade in Madrid.
It's with some regret that we'll see a merciless red caravan slip away as it attempts to overtake the Giro's pink jersey, given that it's clearly surpassing the quality indicators given the number of participants (this time led by the Dane Jonas Vingegaard), the spread, and the solidity of the men who are carrying the Vuelta forward with their noses in the air.
Be that as it may.
Happy Vuelta and have a good trip everyone.
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