With the Giro, Slovenia is in the company of the "Great Three"
Cycling enthusiasts know that there are only three great challenges among all the world’s cycling races – France's Tour de France, Spain's Vuelta and Italy's Giro d'Italia. An overall win in one of these prestigious races shoots professional cyclists straight to the cycling Olympus. Slovenians have already learned how it feels to have their heroes among the winners of one of the three-week races, as Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič have won the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, respectively.
And while the Giro d'Italia is still waiting for an overall Slovenian winner, Slovenian cyclists have already won an impressive eight individual stages of the race. First to enter his name in the annals of individual stage winners at the Giro was Luka Mezgec in 2014, to be followed by Jan Polanc, Primož Roglič, Matej Mohorič and Jan Tratnik.
While the Giro d'Italia is still waiting for an overall Slovenian winner, Slovenian cyclists have won as many as eight individual stages of the race. The Giro is especially close to the heart of Slovenians precisely because it does sometimes head over into Slovenian territory. And it’s heading our way again in 2022! The 19th stage will start in Italy's Marano Lagunare, and the cyclists will enter Slovenia through the Učja gorge. They will then descend towards the Soča river, go past Žaga, through Trnovo to Kobarid (famous as Caporetto in Italian), and from there to Idrsko. After that they will climb to Livek and Livške ravne up to Kolovrat and over the Solarji saddle and go back into Italy to Cividale del Friuli (Čedad in Slovenian), where they will begin the final ascent to the famous pilgrimage centre of Castelmonte above Cividale.
The 178 km long "Slovenian" stage will feature almost 3,230 metres of climbing, including a new 10 km climb with an average gradient of 10%, and a challenging finishing climb at the end.