Giro d’Italia Stage 12 preview: Sprinters’ territory returns as fast men look to break Pedersen’s dominance

The sprinters get another run-out today after a few GC-heavy days in the 2025 Giro d’Italia and a couple of thrilling stages for the breakaway.

There’s 1700m of elevation gain on today’s 172km stage, but it’s a real stage of two halves, with all that climbing before the 100km to go mark. From there it’s almost entirely pan-flat, so expect any potential escapees to be caught and the sprint trains mass at the front to set up a drag race to the line.

Starting in Modena, the parcours tilts uphill almost straightaway, gently at first to the category three climb at Baiso, 40km in, before rolling terrain carries the riders to the intermediate sprint at Felina. That up and down continues until the second of two classified climbs, 96km in at Borsea, with the second intermediate sprint on the flat at Sant’Ilario d’Enza.

The sprinters may sweep up the bonus seconds and get a practice for the real thing in Viadana at the Red Bull kilometre in Brescello, 33km before the finish line. They then swing onto a 28.6km circuit of Viadana on mostly wide, straight, urban roads, and a wide, flat finishing straight with its final corner 500m from the line. Pure bunch sprint territory.

Route map and profile

Start time

Stage 12 starts at 1.15pm local time (12.15pm BST) and is set to finish at 5.30pm local time (4.30pm BST).

Prediction

Take your pick of the sprinters in this race, with the flat run-in making this almost guaranteed to be a sprint finish - unless somebody launches a late flyer. Could Taco van der Hoorn or another breakaway specialist look for revenge, after they were caught in the final 2.5km on stage six into Napoli?

Of the pure sprinters Kaden Groves and Casper van Uden have one stage apiece, while Mads Pedersen has three from the more punchy finishes and will likely be circling for more ciclamino points. Olav Kooij is winless in the race so far despite looking promising earlier in the race, but he’s largely been anonymous since his second place on stage four. Paul Magnier looks to be growing into this race and Maikel Zijlaard has had a couple of top-10s, but let’s go with Kaden Groves, who looked phenomenal on stage six and now has his confidence back after a first win of 2025.