New Giro d’Italia boss wants later date and less focus on Tour de France

Luca Guercilena has big plans as the new Head of Cycling at RCS Sport. The organizer of Italy’s biggest races recently appointed the Italian, thereby charting a new course. Guercilena left Lidl-Trek and shared his ideas through his new employer’s official channels.

Guercilena knows RCS Sport’s races inside out after 16 years at the highest level with Lidl-Trek. His new portfolio includes Milan-San Remo, Il Lombardia, the Giro d’Italia and week-long stage races such as Tirreno-Adriatico. His aim is to make those events even more international while increasing their appeal to fans, riders, teams and partners around the world.

The 53-year-old will not operate as the traditional race director leaning out of a car with a flag in his hand. Guercilena will instead have a broader coordinating role behind the scenes — and, if he gets his way, a crucial one. His central idea is that the Giro should stop measuring itself against the Tour de France and instead strengthen its own identity with an attractive, balanced and well-structured route.

It is an ambitious idea, as Guercilena explained in Corriere della Sera, but what would it mean in practice? He would like the Giro to move later in the calendar rather than continually adapting itself around the Tour. That could reduce the risk of poor weather in the high mountains, allow the race to make greater use of Italy’s Festa della Repubblica on June 2 and put more distance between the Giro and the Belgian spring Classics. Guercilena believes that extra separation could also help the race attract a stronger field.

Does that mean riders would need to combine the Giro and Tour? Not necessarily. Guercilena believes the Giro first has to offer enough spectacle and sporting opportunity in its own right. He wants balanced routes on which climbers, sprinters and time trialists all have genuine chances to make an impact, rather than designing a course that immediately excludes entire categories of riders. Instead of chasing the biggest names individually, the aim is to create a race that naturally makes those riders want to start.

Having Tadej Pogačar on the start line is therefore not essential to Guercilena’s vision. He also wants the Giro to retain the adventurous ingredients that have helped define it in recent decades, including gravel roads, but only when safety and inclusivity can be guaranteed. A spectacular route is important, but not at any cost: in Guercilena’s view, a route decision should never effectively rule out half of the peloton before the race has even begun.